"The coast guard official, speaking from the port captain's office in the Tuscan port of Livorno, said the vessel "hit an obstacle" — it wasn't clear if it might have hit a rocky reef in the waters off Giglio — "ripping a gash 50 meters (165 feet) across" on the left side of the ship, and started taking on water.

The cruise liner's captain, Paolillo said, then tried to steer his ship toward shallow waters, near Giglio's small port, to make evacuation by lifeboat easier.

But after the ship started listing badly onto its right side, lifeboat evacuation was no longer feasible, Paolillo said."

Title: (Many) lifeboats could not be lowered bacause the ship was listing so badly
Post by: Host Mike on January 14, 2012, 06:37:05 AM

"Passengers complained that the evacuation was delayed and disorganised, exacerbating the panic on board.

Some complained that the crew failed to give instructions on how to evacuate the ship, with a drill only scheduled for Saturday afternoon.

"It was so unorganised. Our evacuation drill was scheduled for 5pm," said Melissa Goduti, 28, of Wallingford, Connecticut, in the US. "We had joked what if something had happened today [Friday]."

Passenger Mara Parmegiani told the Italian news agency Ansa that "it was like a scene from the Titanic".

Survivor Christine Hammer, from Bonn, Germany, said she was eating her first course when the ship ran aground.

"We heard a crash. Glasses and plates fell down and we went out of the dining room and we were told it wasn't anything dangerous," she said.

The passengers were then instructed to put on lifejackets and take to the lifeboats. But Hammer, who was travelling with her husband, Gert, on her first ever cruise trip, said people could not get into the lifeboats because the liner was listing so badly that they could not be lowered into the sea."

"No one counted us, neither in the life boats or on land," said Ophelie Gondelle, 28, a French military officer from Marseille. She said there had been no evacuation drill since she boarded in France on Jan. 8.

As dawn neared, a painstaking search of the 290-meter (950-foot) long ship's interior was being conducted to see if anyone might have been trapped inside, Paolillo said.

"There are some 2,000 cabins, and the ship isn't straight," Paolillo said, referring to the Concordia's dramatic more than 45-degree tilt on its right side. "I'll leave it to your imagination to understand how they (the rescuers) are working as they move through it."

"We could only feel that the boat had hit something, we had no idea how serious it was until we got out and we looked through the window and we saw the water getting closer and closer. Everything happened really, really fast and we saw the water coming in."

Mr Costa said that once the emergency alarm was set off people started to panic and push each other in a bid to get into lifeboats.

"A lot of people were falling down the stairs and were hurt because things fell on them," he added.

The worker said it took the crew a long time to launch the lifeboats as the vessel had listed so much.

He said: "We just saw a huge rock, that was probably where the ship hit, and people were having huge trouble trying to get on the lifeboats. So at that point we didn't know what to do so it took hours for people to get off the ship.

"It was easier for people to jump into the sea because we were on the same level as that water so some people pretty much just decided to swim as they were not able to get on the lifeboats."

Mr Costa added that the rescue operation was continuing with people still in the sea."

"Italian prosecutors have detained the captain of the cruise ship that ran aground off Tuscany as three people are confirmed dead and local officials report that 69 people are still unaccounted for.

Earlier Saturday Francesco Schettino, captain of the Costa Concordia, had told Italian television that the vessel had hit a rocky spur while cruising in waters which, according to the charts, should have been safe.

"As we were navigating at cruise speed, we hit a rocky spur," he told Tgcom24 television station:

"According to the nautical chart, there should have been sufficient water underneath us," he added."

"Authorities were looking at why the ship didn't hail a mayday during the accident near the Italian island of Giglio on Friday night, officials said. The ship is owned by Genoa-based Costa Cruises.

"At the moment we can't exclude that the ship had some kind of technical problem, and for this reason moved towards the coast in order to save the passengers, the crew and the ship. But they didn't send a mayday. The ship got in contact with us once the evacuation procedures were already ongoing," Del Santo said prior to the announcement of the arrest.

Giuseppe Orsina, a spokesman with the local civil protection agency, said 43 to 51 people were missing, though authorities are reviewing passenger lists to confirm the exact figure.

"These people could be still on the island of Giglio, in private houses or in hospitals," Orsina said.

The coast guard said 50 to 70 people could be missing. The ship was 2.5 miles off route when it struck a rocky sandbar, according to the Italian Coast Guard. Local fishermen say the island coast of Giglio is known for its rocky sea floor. "Captain Schettino, who was on the bridge at the time, immediately understood the severity of the situation and performed a maneuver intended to protect both guests and crew, and initiated security procedures to prepare for an eventual ship evacuation," he continued.

"Unfortunately, that operation was complicated by a sudden tilting of the ship that made disembarkation difficult," Onorato said.

Some passengers fell into the chilly waters during the rescue, Italy's ANSA news agency reported. http://www.digtriad.com/news/article/208878/175/Captain-Of-Italy-Cruise-Ship-Arrested

Title: Our crew members on board took all the necessary actions
Post by: Host Mike on January 14, 2012, 05:17:10 PM

"Cruise operator Costa Crociere said in a statement: "Emergency procedures have been promptly activated, our crew members on board are professionally trained and they took all the necessary actions to assist our guests and help them to evacuate the ship."

But the sailors' union Nautilus International said that, 100 years on from the sinking of the Titanic, "many ships are now effectively small towns at sea, and the sheer number of people on board raises serious questions about evacuation".

"Sky Italia reported Saturday that investigators based in the Tuscan city of Grosseto confirmed Francisco Schettino was detained for investigation of alleged manslaughter, abandoning his ship while people were still aboard and causing a shipwreck."

"The captain and the crew were the last ones to leave the ship, said a Costa Crociere spokesman, who declined to be named, citing company policy when reached before the report of Captain Schettino’s detention. The rocks weren’t on the map, Schettino said in an interview broadcast by TGCOM24. The ship was at least 300 meters from the island when it hit the rocks, and he was the last one to leave the ship, he said."

Title: Order to evacuate was delayed for 45 minutes
Post by: Host Mike on January 14, 2012, 05:38:09 PM

"The collision caused mass panic, not helped by the decision to delay the order to evacuate for 45 minutes. Some passengers jumped into the water and tried to swim to shore as lifeboats could not be launched or were full. At least one passenger is thought to have died when he hit the water and suffered a heart attack.

There were fears that others, including some crew, may have drowned after becoming trapped on lower decks which flooded as the ship tilted.

Title: Prosecutor said the Concordia had approached the tiny island "the wrong way"
Post by: Host Mike on January 14, 2012, 05:49:02 PM

"Prosecutor Francesco Verusio said the Concordia had approached the tiny island of Giglio ‘the wrong way’, while sources said that the 52-year-old captain, from Naples, had abandoned the ship at around 11.30pm local time – about an hour after it struck a rocky outcrop and started taking in water – while the last passengers were not taken to safety until 3am yesterday morning.

As the liner lay virtually flat on its starboard side last night, a 160ft gash visible on its upturned hull, rescue workers raised the possibility that there may still be bodies in the submerged section."

This was not the first accident involving the Costa Condordia, however. On November 22, 2008, the ship was pushed along the dock by high winds at Palermo in Sicily, causing damage to her bow. No injuries were reported.

"Rosenker said one of the first priorities for investigators will be to examine the ship's "black box" voice recorder.

"It actually would have recorded the voices of the people - the officers and crew that were on the bridge - and you'll be able to hear their discussion about what happened, and the decisions that they made after the vessel struck the rocks.

"The investigation will really delve into the captain's thinking, and the timing in which he made decisions, both into communicating what was going on to the passengers, ordering them to go back to their cabins to get their life preservers, and then to the final decision where you would evacuate the ship," Rosenker said."

"Coastguards meanwhile said divers had recovered the ship's "black box" which should contain records of the precise route and conversations among the crew. The search for survivors was called off for the night late on Saturday."

Title: Captain seen drinking in the bar before ship hit the rocks
Post by: Host Mike on January 14, 2012, 06:05:05 PM

"The passengers described scenes of chaos and confusion on board the vessel after it struck the reef and said there seemed to be no leadership from the ship’s senior crew. Some have warned they are prepared to take legal action against the vessel’s owners.

Monique Maurek, 41, an undertaker from Holland, said: “There was no evacuation drill at any point after we set sail. Nobody had any idea where the lifeboats were or where the life jackets were kept, so when it came to having to evacuate the ship it was chaos. Most people didn’t even have any idea of what the evacuation warning sound would be.

“It was only because some of us had already been on a cruise that we recognised that seven blasts of the horn was a signal to abandon ship.”

Mrs Maurek added: “What scandalised me most was when I saw the captain spending much of the evening before we hit the rocks drinking in the bar with a beautiful woman on his arm.”(Former Costa dancer and passenger rep. Domnica Cemortan is said to be the 25 year old beautiful women on the Captain's arm.)

Takayuki Yabumoto, 52, a business consultant from Tokyo, who was sitting down to dinner when disaster struck, said: “There was an announcement saying the situation was under control. We left the restaurant and went on deck. Some women and children were crying; there was panic.”

Title: He said, she said
Post by: Host Mike on January 14, 2012, 06:08:17 PM

"It is not correct to say that the boat was off its route," Gianni Onorato, managing director of Costa Crociere told reporters on Porto Santo Stefano, near the site of the accident.

But according to Giorgio Fanculli, the only journalist on the island of Giglio, off which cruise ship ran aground, the vessel was too close to land.

"It was the classic passage, the cruise liners do it often, all lights lit up... but here, he went too close, a lot more than usual," said Fanculli, who saw the vessel sink and also witnessed the rescue operation.

Title: Non-Europeans had to turn in their passports upon boarding
Post by: Host Mike on January 14, 2012, 06:53:55 PM

Consular officials wore bright green or orange emergency vests to identify themselves to their co-nationals, offering help in how to obtain emergency passports, since many non-Europeans had to turn them in to cruise officials upon boarding.

"The chief prosecutor in the Tuscan city of Grosseto, Francesco Verusio, was quoted by the ANSA news agency as telling reporters that the captain “very ineptly got close to Giglio.”

“The ship struck a reef that got stuck inside the left side, making it (the ship) lean over and take on a lot of water in the space of two, three minutes,” he said.

Schettino was at the command, and it was “he who ordered the route, that’s what it appears to us. It was a deliberate” choice to follow that route, ANSA quote him as saying.

It quoted Schettino’s lawyer, Bruno Leporatti as saying his client understands why he was being detained but that “as his defender, I’d like to say that several hundred people owed their life to the expertise that the commander of the Costa Concordia showed during the emergency.”

ANSA quoted Francesco Schettino’s sister, Giulia, as saying her brother called their mother, 80-year-old Rosa, at five in the morning, saying “Mamma, there has been a tragedy. But stay calm. I tried to save the passengers. But for a while, I won’t be able to phone you.”

"Malcolm Latarche, editor of maritime magazine IHS Fairplay Solutions, said a loss of power coupled with a failure of backup systems could have caused the crew to lose control.

"I would say power failure caused by harmonic interference and then it can't propel straight or navigate and it hit rocks," Latarche said."

"Miriam Vitale, a hostess on the cruise liner who disembarked earlier this week in Palermo, told SkyTG24 the ship conducts a drill every 15 days. She said that since passengers on the Concordia embark or disembark every day, some passengers could miss it depending on which day they begin the trip."

"Carnival will lose business from customers who were booked on future Concordia voyages, Zackfia said. There will be additional costs that are hard to estimate, she said. The company doesn’t have insurance that covers lost revenue or earnings from its ships or other operations, according to its most recent 10-K, filed in January 2011."

"Carnival carries insurance that covers a number of risks within certain limitations, according to the January 2011 filing. The coverage includes hull and machine insurance, as well as protection and indemnity policy that includes crew and passenger injuries, shipwrecks, damage to third parties and pollution.

The company also had practiced some self insurance in the past, according to Zackfia and to filings.

Carnival had no immediate response to requests for specifics of its coverage.

“This is a company that has a very strong, solid cash flow and balance sheet,” Zackfia said.

With U.S. markets closed tomorrow for the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, Carnival will trade for the first time following the incident in London. Carnival fell 2.5 percent in New York on Jan. 13, valuing the company at $27.8 billion. The shares declined 29 percent last year."

"The full extent of Carnival’s liabilities as a result of the Costa Corncordia accident remains to be seen. The company’s insurance is a combination of self-insurance — a fund that it maintains for disasters — and policies with high deductibles, according to its financial disclosures.

“We are not protected against all risks, which could result in unexpected increases in our expenses in the event of an incident,” the company’s SEC filings say."

"The ship probably was on a wrong route, the prosecutor said. The so-called black box was retrieved, Verusio said. Investigators have determined the ship was only about 150 meters (492 feet) from the coast when it hit the rocks, Ansa said.

Captain Schettino said he was the last one to leave the ship, according to an interview broadcast by TGCOM24 before his arrest. The rocks weren’t identified on the navigation maps, Schettino said. The ship was at least 300 meters from the island when it hit the rocks, he said.

The accident was due to a “reckless maneuver,” news Ansa quoted Verusio as saying. Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera said the captain may have steered the boat closer to the coast to allow passengers a better view of the island’s lights."

"Italian Coast Guard Cmdr. Francesco Paolillo says officers urged the captain, Francesco Schettino, to return to his ship and honor his duty to stay aboard until everyone else was safely off the vessel, but said Schettino ignored them."

"Italian Coast Guard Cmdr. Francesco Paolillo says officers urged the captain, Francesco Schettino, to return to his ship and honor his duty to stay aboard until everyone else was safely off the vessel, but said Schettino ignored them."

A French couple who boarded the Concordia in Marseille, Ophelie Gondelle and David Du Pays of Marseille, told the AP they saw the captain in a lifeboat, covered by a blanket, well before all the passengers were off the ship. They insisted on telling a reporter what they saw, so incensed that — according to them — the captain had abandoned the ship before everyone had been evacuated.

"The commander left before and was on the dock before everyone was off," said Gondelle, 28, a French military officer.

"Normally the commander should leave at the end," said Du Pays, a police officer who said he helped an injured passenger to a rescue boat. "I did what I could."

Title: Costa says the captain made errors of judgment that had very grave consequences
Post by: Host Mike on January 15, 2012, 05:36:45 PM

"Costa Crociere SpA, the Genoa, Italy-based cruise company, issued a statement late Sunday carried by Italian media saying it "seems that the captain made errors of judgment that had very grave consequences: the route followed the ship turned out to be too close to the coast, and it seems that his decision in handling the emergency didn't follow Costa Crociere's procedures, which are in line, and in some cases, go beyond, international standards."

"But Schettino told reporters he was the last to leave the boat and said rocks had not been detected by the vessel's navigation system.

He said: "What happened is that while we were moving with a tourist navigation system, as you can see by the rip (in the ship) there was a lateral rock projection.

"Even though we were sailing along the coast with the tourist navigation system, I firmly believe that the rocks were not detected as the ship was not heading forward but sideways as if underwater there was this rock projection.

"I don't know if it was detected or not but on the nautical chart it was marked just as water at some 100-150m from the rocks and we were about 300m from the shore, more or less.

"We shouldn't have had this contact."

http://news.sky.com/home/world-news/article/16149523

Editor: A Tourist Navigation System seems to mean that the bridge was navigating for purposes of sightseeing.

Survivors alleged that panicked crew members did little to help as the Costa Concordia's 3,206 passengers tried to abandon the listing ship.

"They were incompetent," said Giuseppe Lanzafame, 42, a former sailor who was on board with his wife and two daughters. "They made us stay on deck for an hour and a half without telling us anything. I saw immediately the lack of preparation of the crew members, who didn't know how to lower the lifeboats. Many didn't know how to communicate with us because they did not speak Italian or English," he said.

"At one point I had to explain to one of them how to manoeuvre the lifeboat and I had to take charge of it because they didn't know what to do and were more scared than we were," he added.

Another passenger, Francesco Frontera, said: "The crew, who were mostly Indians, Filipinos, and Sri Lankans, had no thought for saving the old, the children and the disabled. They just ran to be first on the lifeboats."

About two hours into the trip, the ship took a detour from its "usual" route to give passengers an up-close view of Giglio's port town by night, according to officials there.

Upon approaching the port, the ship hit a rock that wasn't marked on nautical maps, Mr. Schettino, the captain, would later tell reporters. Instead, the ship struck Le Scole, a well-known rock formation, that skirts the coast of Giglio, according to Italian officials.On the Italian mainland, the coast guard began receiving scattered complaints from passengers aboard the ship, but the ship's command hadn't yet issued an SOS, according to an Italian official briefed on the matter. At 10:14 p.m., the coast guard made its first call to ship's command to check on the vessel and was told the situation was "under control," the official said. That was hardly the case, passengers said."Gross human error" was to blame, Italian Defense Minister Giampaolo Di Paola, an admiral himself, said on state television.

Title: The Captain was engaged in making an "incredible spectacle" with a close pass
Post by: Host Mike on January 15, 2012, 07:13:45 PM

"A risky practice by cruise ships of close-passing the island of Giglio in a foghorn-blasting salute to the local population appears to have contributed to the Costa Concordia disaster, officials and witnesses said Sunday.Some witnesses said the ship was indulging the local population with a spectacular parade past the island in what is known locally as an "inchino" or reverent bow, with its upper decks ablaze with light as many of the passengers sat down to dinner.

Adding weight to the theory, the daily La Stampa on Sunday published a letter dated last August in which Giglio's mayor Sergio Ortelli thanked the Concordia's captain for the "incredible spectacle" of a previous close pass.

The mayor told journalists on the island on Saturday that the normal route for cruise ships heading north from the port of Civitavecchia near Rome takes them to within three to five kilometres (1.8 to 3.1 miles) of Giglio. "Many of them pass close to Giglio to salute the local population with blasts from their sirens.""It's a very nice show to see, the ship all lit up when you see it from the land. This time round it went wrong," said the mayor.

On Sunday however, Ortelli denied that it was a regular practice to come so close to the island.

"It's not the practice, or in any way a programmed salute but always in safe conditions," he said.

Ortelli said some skippers of Costa cruise liners liked to "pay tribute" to former colleagues who have retired to the island but that this always occurred in "safe conditions".

Francesco Verusio, the Tuscany region's chief prosecutor, said the ship's captain "should not have been sailing so close to the island" and had him arrested for multiple homicide and abandoning his ship before all the passengers were off.

He said that the captain had "approached Giglio in a very awkward manner", which led the ship to "hit a rock that became embedded in its left side, causing it to list and take in an enormous amount of water in the space of two or three minutes."

"The theory being examined by prosecutors last night was that Capt Schettino's attempt to honour the Concordia's long-standing tradition of the Giglio salute could be to blame for the tragedy. Reports suggested that one of the ship's senior crew members has a friend in the Italian Merchant Navy who lives on the island, and wanted to get extra close before sounding the traditional greeting.

There were also claims that a similarly close "sail-past" last year had prompted the local mayor to send a congratulatory email to the captain for helping entertain the island's tourists.

Sergio Ortelli, the mayor of Giglio, explained: "Costa ships often pass close to the island – tourists and locals gather on the jetty to see the ships go by. We light up the Saracen tower [a stone tower built to spot pirate raids during medieval times]. It's a great sight."

But Italo Arienti, a 54-year-old sailor who has worked on the ferry service between Giglio and the Italian mainland for more than a decade, said: "This was too close, too close."

An Italian cruise ship captain, who did not want to give his name, said: "During the summer it is easy to see the rocks because they are illuminated by a small tourist resort. But in winter, all the lights are off."

Franco Verusio, the procurator of Grosseto who is leading the investigation into the disaster, said questions remained as to why the ship had been so close to shore. "It was a deliberate but carelessly clumsy manoeuvre," he said. Some maritime experts also criticised the captain for attempting to turn the ship around and bring it into port once he realised the vessel was taking on too much water and could be in trouble. Within 15 minutes of the collision, the ship had started to list badly and Capt Schettino made the decision to change course and head into Giglio port. But before the ship was able to reach safety, the stricken Costa Concordia ran aground on a rocky shelf.

Modern design means that even if the vessel is holed beneath the waterline, it can still stay afloat. But in grounding the Costa Concordia, further damage to the hull appears to have been caused, resulting in the catastrophic capsizing. However, Dr Richard Shaw, a specialist in Maritime Law at the University of Southampton, said the captain's actions could have helped save many of the 4,000 people on board. He said: "It looks like the captain has tried to beach the ship in shallower water. If the ship had not been brought into shallower water, there would have been a much greater loss of life."

"The ship was insured for €405m (£335m) with around a dozen companies, led by the XL Group, which operates in the Lloyd's of London market. Britain's RSA Insurance and Italy's Generali are also on the hook. RSA's exposure is thought to be for less than €10m. Aon was the insurance broker.

Carnival's cover includes hull and machine insurance as well as protection and indemnity cover for crew and passenger injuries, shipwrecks, damage to third parties and pollution. However, it has in the past, like many large companies, chosen to self-insure part of its cover – effectively taking on the risk itself. Filings last year suggest it did not have cover for the loss of revenues from an incident like the Concordia disaster."

"Carnival Corp. fell the most in more than 10 years in London trading after saying the grounding of the Costa Concordia off Italy’s Tuscan Coast that killed at least six people will cost the company as much as $95 million."The insurance loss could be $500 million to $1 billion depending on liability claims, exceeding the loss from the Exxon Valdez disaster including pollution, said Joy Ferneyhough, insurance analyst at Espirito Santo Investment Bank."

"U.K.-listed shares of Carnival (CCL: 34.28, -0.86, -2.45%) plunged almost 20% Monday morning as the markets fret about the financial impact of the Costa Concordia cruise-ship disaster off the coast of Italy over the weekend.

Analysts warned the disaster, which has caused at least six deaths, could hurt bookings, lead to a flurry of lawsuits and reduce the company’s ship capacity. Sixteen other people are believed to be missing."

"Italian Coast Guard Cmdr. Francesco Paolillo says officers urged the captain, Francesco Schettino, to return to his ship and honor his duty to stay aboard until everyone else was safely off the vessel, but said Schettino ignored them."

Oh dear. I hope this does not reflect badly on other Italian Captains/Officers employed on the ships, of whch Princess has many, as we all know.

But maybe too, pax might take lifeboat drill/emergency drills a little more seriously from now on. Many still try to dodge it, as we know. ???

We've seen that attending a muster drill still has no effect on the outcome under extreme circumstances, especially when the crew isn't fully trained to cope with the disaster. Everyone knew where to do and where to report with their life jackets and with the incompetent crew it still did nothing to help the situation. It was everybody for themselves as usually happens in situation like this. If this had occurred in open waters the death toll would have been in the hundreds for sure.

Title: Captain of the cruise ship deviated from the approved route to showboat
Post by: Host Mike on January 16, 2012, 10:32:50 AM

"The captain of the cruise ship that capsized off Tuscany made an unauthorized, unapproved deviation from its programmed course, a "human error" that led to the grounding of the vessel, the chief executive of the ship's Italian owner said Monday. At least six people died in the incident." "Costa ships have their routes programmed, and alarms go off when they deviate, the chief executive said in a press conference.

"This route was put in correctly. The fact that it left from this course is due solely to a maneuver by the commander that was unapproved, unauthorized and unknown to Costa," he said.Questions have been swirling about why the ship had navigated so close to the dangerous reefs and rocks that jut off Giglio's eastern coast, amid suspicions the captain may have ventured too close while carrying out a maneuver to entertain tourists on the island.

Residents of Giglio said they had never seen the Costa come so close to the dangerous "Le Scole" reef area."

Title: The ship can move even after it has sunk
Post by: Host Mike on January 16, 2012, 10:45:37 AM

"The search for 16 people still missing after the capsizing of the cruise liner Costa Concordia has resumed following an earlier suspension after the ship moved, according to a fire brigade spokesman.

The vessel hit an underwater reef off the coast of Tuscany on Friday, tearing a 70-metre hole in the hull and causing it to tip onto its side.

The Costa Concordia has been balanced on the rocks since the accident but the weather earlier took a turn for the worse causing it to begin to slip, fire brigade officials said.

However, as the weather improved, officials said their search could resume.

Uncertainty over the stability of the vessel means search operations will now only be conducted in daylight hours, fire service spokesman Luca Cari added."

http://news.sky.com/home/world-news/article/16150043

"Lodged on rocks yards from the coast, the vessel stands in 37 metres of water. But only 30 metres away the rock shelf drops abruptly, and the depth is 70 metres; there was a distinct possibility the ship might suddenly be dislodged off the shelf and plunge into the deep."

"Foschi suggested other officers and crew members of the ship didn't interfere with the captain's decision because it was not their place.

"The captain has the authority by law to take (a) decision on board," he said. "In this particular case the captain decided to change the route, and he went into water he did not know."

Foschi said the captain was on the bridge of the ship at the time of the accident along with several other crew members. He said the company is unable to give a timeline of what took place after that because Italian prosecutors have seized the ship's data recorders and other resources that would allow it to piece together a sequence of events."

Title: "We are now in the emergency phase of trying to prevent pollution"
Post by: Host Mike on January 16, 2012, 11:34:30 AM

"The 290-metre-long ship is resting on an undersea ledge in 15-20 meters of water but salvage workers fear it could slip down the slope, which falls away sharply into much deeper water.

The ship shifted on its rocky ledge in worsening weather on Monday but after a brief suspension, rescue efforts resumed.

"We are now in the emergency phase of trying to prevent pollution," said Pier Luigi Foschi, chairman and CEO of the ship's owners Costa Cruises, who said the disaster was due to "human error" by the captain.

The ship is carrying heavy fuel, or bunker fuel. Because of its density, it is harder to pump out unless it is heated or diluted."

"The two Americans missing in an Italian cruise ship disaster were identified on Monday as a retired couple from Minnesota who had been eagerly looking forward to their European vacation.

Family members issued a statement on Monday confirming that Jerry Heil, 69, and his wife Barbara, 70, of White Bear Lake, a suburb of St Paul, are the two Americans missing in the wreck of the Costa Concordia."

"The captain of a luxury cruise liner that capsized off Italy's coast may have steered the ship too close to shore so that its head waiter could salute his family in a pre-planned stunt that was posted on Facebook.

Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera reports that just minutes before the Costa Concordia struck rocks and began taking on water, the head waiter's sister updated her Facebook status to say: "In a short period of time the Concordia ship will pass very close. A big greeting to my brother who finally gets to have a holiday on landing in Savona."

Captain Francesco Schettino, 52, reportedly invited the head waiter, Antonello Tievoli, on to the bridge as he steered the vessel towards the coast of Giglio on Friday night.

"Come and see, Antonello, we're right in front of Giglio," the captain told Mr Tievoli shortly before the crash, according to the newspaper."

It also quoted witnesses who claimed the waiter had warned Captain Schettino just before the accident, saying: "Careful, we are extremely close to the shore."

Captain Schettino may have performed the sail-past also as a salute to an old colleague, a former admiral from the cruise line, who was not even on Giglio on Friday night.

Title: What the "black box" (actually an orange box) will show
Post by: Host Mike on January 17, 2012, 12:06:37 AM

"Just what is Schettin’s culpability will be determined by the DVR (also known as the Maritime Black Box), which records and stores vital information of a ship’s journey.

It is required on all ships by the International Maritime Organization, a UN agency.

The DVR records the position of the vessel, date and time, the speed on water and over ground; all radio communications and the course of the vessel from a compass. It also measures the depth under the ship’s keel; whether any part of the hull is open and water is getting in, hull stressors, as well as propeller direction and how fast the propeller is turning.

The DVR records up to 12 hours of a voyage. The data can be downloaded to a personal computer or laptop for examination."

Title: The coastguard was told the liner had suffered a "small technical failure".
Post by: Host Mike on January 17, 2012, 08:17:27 AM

"After hitting a rock off the coast of Giglio last Friday night, the Costa Concordia continued past the port as Schettino turned it around and brought it to rest on a headland known as Punta Gabbianara. According to the transcripts, there, at 21.49, he was radioed by the harbourmaster's office in Livorno, which is a regional headquarters of the coastguard.

"Everything OK?" he was asked.

"Affirmative," came the reply. The coastguard was told the liner had suffered a "small technical failure".

Five minutes later, the coastguard radioed the bridge again. The second newspaper, Il Fatto Quotidiano, which did not provide a source for its information, said that in the meantime the harbourmaster's office had been told by the semi-militarised Carabinieri police of a call from a passenger aboard the Costa Concordia talking about a shipwreck.

This time, the coastguard asked not only if the vessel was in trouble, but also what was its position.

"We've only got a technical problem and we're not able to [give the position]," came the reply. "But as soon as it's resolved, we'll communicate [it] to you."

Thereafter, all radio calls to the stricken liner went unanswered. But at 00.32 the coastguard managed to contact Schettino by telephone.

By then, the evacuation had been under way for only about 40 minutes. The captain was asked how many people were still aboard.

"Two, three hundred," he replied.

Ten minutes later, the coastguard rang him again. By then, said Il Fatto quoting a local fire brigade commander, Schettino had left his ship and was on the rocks at Punta Gabbianara.

He was again asked how many people were still aboard.

"I've called the ship owners, and they tell me that about 40 people are missing," he replied.

"So few? How is that possible?" asked the coastguard, before adding: "But you're on board?"

"No. I'm not on board because the bows of the ship are coming up. We've abandoned her."

"What do you mean? You've abandoned ship?"

"No. No way have I abandoned ship. I'm here," Schettino replied.

The final, and most dramatic call, took place at 1.46am when, after confirming that he was speaking to the captain, a coastguard officer told him: "Right. You are now going back on board. You are going to go back up the rope ladder, return to the bridge and co-ordinate operations."

There followed a long silence, Il Fatto reported.

"You must tell me how many people there are," the coastguard officer continued. "How many passengers, women and children – and co-ordinate the rescue."

Schettino protested that he was on hand.

"Captain," said the coastguard officer, cutting across him. "This is an order. Now I am in command. You have declared the abandoning of a ship and are going to co-ordinate the rescue from the bridge. There are already dead bodies."

"How many?" asked Schettino.

"You're the one who should be telling me that," came the reply. "What do you want to do? Go home? Now, go back up and tell me what can be done: how many people there are and what they need."

Smit Salvage, a unit of Royal Boskalis Westminster NV, contracted by Costa Crociere SpA, owner of the stricken Costa Concordia, is ready to begin inspecting the ship as soon as tomorrow. The company will need two to four weeks to take the fuel off the ship, executives said on a conference call today.

“The vessel is stable and we feel confident that removal can be done in a fairly rapid way,” Kees van Essen, Smit’s manager of operations, said during the call. There have been no leaks so far and salvage operations don’t increase the chance of leaks, he said.

Time is critical to removing the more than 500,000 gallons of fuel as deteriorating weather and shifts in the boat’s position increase the risk of a spill. Search and rescue operations had to be suspended for four hours yesterday after the Costa Concordia moved position in rising seas off the Italian island of Giglio."

"To Jack Hickey, a maritime lawyer in Miami who is working with an Italian lawyer to represent Costa Concordia passengers, the cruise line’s responsibility is obvious. Referring to the captain, Mr. Hickey said that the company had “nobody with more authority or responsibility than him” on the ship, and that it was not as if a janitor had somehow steered the ship onto a rock formation. Besides, he noted, in an age when ships are in constant communication with their owners, the company should not be able to argue that it had no idea what was going on. “You mean you can’t track it?” he asked. “You mean if it gets that far off track, you don’t know?”

The issues in the case could be shaped by the highly restrictive terms of the contract that every passenger gets with his or her ticket, said Gerald McGill, an admiralty lawyer in Pensacola, Fla.

Cruise contracts are notoriously restrictive regarding the rights of passengers, and Costa’s 6,400-word contract is no exception. The Costa contract sharply limits the kinds of lawsuits that can be brought, where those suits can be brought and how much the company can be made to pay. All such provisions have been upheld in the courts of the United States, he said.

Costa’s contract states that the line will pay no more in cases of death, personal injury and property loss than about $71,000 per passenger. It allows no recovery for mental anguish or psychological damages. It bars class-action suits.

“If you read this cruise line ticket, and it doesn’t make your stomach turn, it should,” Mr. McGill said.

For cruises that do not involve a United States port, the contract states, any litigation must be brought in Genoa, Italy, and be governed by Italian law. But when it comes to liability, the contract says the company can take advantage of any limits set by international treaties or the laws of the United States, which are very generous to owners of vessels. If there is a conflict among the patchwork of laws and treaties regarding liability, it says, “the Carrier shall be entitled to invoke whichever provisions provide the greatest limitations and immunities to the Carrier.”

“That’s called the ‘the terms are whatever we want them to be’ clause,” Mr. Hickey said. “It’s a contract created by lawyers under this fantasy that the everyday passenger will understand what that means.”

Title: We will take care of you later rather than sooner
Post by: Host Mike on January 18, 2012, 10:44:51 PM

"I give my personal assurance that we will take care of each and every one of our guests, crew and their families affected by this tragic event," Carnival Chief Executive Micky Arison said in a statement late on Wednesday - five days after the incident that left 11 people dead and 22 missing.""On a scale of one to 10, with 10 being "outstanding," Carnival's public relations strategy in the immediate wake of the disaster gets a four, said Allyson Stewart-Allen, director of International Marketing Partners, a consulting firm.

"It wasn't quick, it wasn't specific, it wasn't reassuring," Stewart-Allen said, noting that Carnival's first statement, released on Saturday nearly 24 hours after the Costa Concordia liner struck rock causing it to capsize, did not quote a specific person."

Title: 3 Things Carnival Must Do NOW to Manage the Costa Crisis
Post by: Host Mike on January 18, 2012, 10:47:01 PM

"1. Go to Italy, now! Carnival CEO Micky Arison needs to get on the overnight plane to Italy right now. He’s left the response to Costa spokespeople but clearly it hasn’t been enough. Worse, some business publications are commenting that Arison is issuing press statements from Miami. This makes him looked detached. Last I checked Miami is 5,000 miles away the scene of the wreck. Get on site now.

2. Demonstrate empathy–a lot of it. On his plane ride to Italy Arison should memorize the name of every one of the people who died. His staff should find out something about these people and Arison should meet with the families as soon as possible. Whenever Arison holds a news conference—and there should be many—he should talk about the families he met and outline the exact the policies that Carnival will put in place to avoid another catastrophe. Show that you care.

3. Be visible. Arison should be holding daily, if not twice -a-day, news conferences. Any information is better than no information. Keep the public updated constantly."

Carnival Corp.'s Micky Arison, who built the cruise company to almost $16 billion in annual revenue, is overseeing the response to its worst accident from Miami, more than 5,000 miles (8,000 kilometers) from the site.He had a net worth of $4.2 billion last year, according to Forbes magazine, making him the 75th wealthiest person in the Forbes 400 list of richest Americans.

"Our priority is the safety of our passengers and crew," Arison said in a statement. "We are deeply saddened by this tragic event and our hearts go out to everyone affected by the grounding of the Costa Concordia and especially to the families and loved ones of those who lost their lives."

"A cruise ship passenger has come forward to back up claims that cowardly captain Francesco Schettino was drinking with a blonde woman when the liner ran aground off an Italian island on Friday night.

Angelo Fabri told the Genoa based il Secolo XIX newspaper how he and his wife Eleonora Rossi had spotted Schettino 'drinking' at dinner in the company of a young blonde woman about 8.35pm on Friday evening.

Today, it emerged the woman is 25-year-old Moldovan Domnica Cemortan, who witnesses spotted on the bridge of the ship alongside Schettino as the doomed vessel began to list.

Reports today speculated that the captain had been trying to impress her."

"The 25-year-old blonde, identified as Domnica Cemortan, was invited onto the bridge as the cruise liner sailed perilously close to Giglio, in what was apparently a ‘salute’ to an old friend of the captain’s and a favour to the ship’s head waiter, whose family were from the island.

She was reportedly the guest of one of the ship’s officers and may be the woman that passengers saw drinking and chatting with Capt Francesco Schettino on Friday evening, a few hours before the Costa Concordia ran aground.

Italian judicial authorities, who are investigating the accident and the captain’s conduct, want to interview Ms Cemortan, who according to her Facebook page was born in Chisinau, Moldova, and lives in Bucharest, Romania."

"It is believed that Miss Cemortan, from Chisnau, Moldova, was working as a passenger rep for Costa Cruises and gave a brief interview to the media defending Schettino, adding that his actions had helped save the lives of holidaymakers and crew.

She has also said in an interview on Moldovan TV that she did have dinner with the captain, but that she went to the bridge after the impact to give instructions to Russian speaking passengers."

"Martino Pellegrino, one of the officers on board the Costa Concordia, joined the growing condemnation of Mr Schettino. “If I had to make a comparison, we got the impression that he would drive a bus like a Ferrari,” he said.

Mario Palombo, a former Costa commander and colleague of the captain, said: “I’ve always had my reservations about Schettino. It’s true, he was my second in command, but he was too exuberant; a daredevil. More than once I had to put him in his place.”

"The Costa Concordia cruise ship that ran aground on Italy’s Giglio island is at “high risk” of sinking, threatening Europe’s biggest marine park as a storm heads toward the area.

“It very much depends on the change in weather conditions,” Environment Minister Corrado Clini said in Parliament in Rome. The government plans to declare a state of emergency for the area at a Cabinet meeting tomorrow, as well as approve a measure that would restrict cruise ships from access to sensitive coastal regions."

Title: In every disaster there is opportunity
Post by: Host Mike on January 19, 2012, 03:08:18 PM

"Speaking at the quayside on Giglio, he said companies likely to bid include Smit Salvage, an arm of Dutch group Boskalis-Westminster, Titan Salvage, owned by U.S. group Crowley Maritime Corp and Denmark's Svitzer, owned by Maersk."

Title: Hopes of finding anyone alive have all but disappeared
Post by: Host Mike on January 19, 2012, 03:25:20 PM

Six days after the 114,500 tonne Costa Concordia capsized off the Tuscan coast, hopes of finding anyone alive on the partially submerged hulk have all but disappeared and the cold waters around the ship have become noticeably rougher."

"The search for people still missing from the Jan. 13 wreck of a luxury cruise ship was temporarily suspended Friday because of a shift in the position of the 114,500-ton vessel resting on the rocky coast of the island of Giglio."

"Officially, the search was for survivors continued, although there was little hope of finding any of the 21 missing people alive."

"Electronic recordings and accounts from passengers, crew and port authorities show that Schettino waited about an hour before calling for an evacuation of the ship."

"Investigators are awaiting the results of toxicology tests to see if Schettino was under the influence of drugs or other substances at the time of the accident."

"Environmental Minister Corrado Clini said he would propose laws Friday that would require liners to keep about two miles away from shore. That would prohibit cruise ships from plying the waters of the Grand Canal of Venice, as well."

Title: At least three calls to headquarters while passengers were kept in the dark
Post by: Host Mike on January 20, 2012, 08:51:39 AM

"An abrupt turn, though, could cause water in the compartments, which often transect the hull, to shift to one side, potentially causing a vessel of that size to roll, the naval engineer said, emphasizing it was too early to determine what caused the Concordia to list. The engineer said the 70-meter gash in the hull could have compromised three compartments, enough to have potentially sunk the ship.

Mr. Schettino has also said he lowered the ship's anchors as part of his efforts to get the ship closer to shore. Prosecutors have ordered police divers to inspect the anchors to determine their position and possibly corroborate this narrative, people familiar with the matter said.

As water rushed in, Mr. Schettino had at least three phone calls with Costa Crociere officials in the port city of Genoa, including Roberto Ferrarini, the company's head of marine operations, said people familiar with the investigation. It wasn't clear what was discussed or who placed the calls."

"The Corriere della Sera newspaper reported that investigators had established Captain Francesco Schettino spoke on three occasions to the ship's operator, Costa Cruises, via its emergency unit before the evacuation began.

Investigators wanted to know whether the 68 minutes that elapsed during the course of these calls was because Mr Schettino had underplayed or underestimated the gravity of the damage sustained by the liner, or because Costa Cruises, a subsidiary of Miami-based Carnival, had been reluctant to sanction a decision to evacuate that might cost it millions of euros in compensation, the paper said."

"Italian prosecutors allege the captain, who is married, may have been distracted from his duties by trying to impress the dancer.

An Italian passenger claimed he witnessed the captain enjoying a dinner of prawn cocktail, shrimp pasta and grilled fish, accompanied with a decanter of red wine, in the ship's finest restaurant, the Concordia Club, on the night of the disaster.

Passenger Angelo Fabbri said: "Schettino, in a dark suit, was sitting in front of the woman. She seemed young. At first, we thought it was his daughter.

"A pretty woman, 35 or 40 years old, slim, with shoulder-length blonde hair, with a black dress with open arms.

"They were laughing. There was trust ... great happiness. There is no doubt they were drinking at least a whole decanter. The last drop was poured into the captain's glass.

“[Capt. Schettino] is one of the best captains in the company. He is very skillful and experienced when it comes to manoeuvring the ship in enclosed spaces, like harbours,” Ms. Cemortan told the Telegraph."

"A British woman has told how she escaped the Costa Concordia after it ran aground, and lost her husband's ashes in the struggle to a lifeboat.

Sandra Rodgers, formerly of Flintshire, was separated from her daughter and twin granddaughters in the "completely chaotic" rush to leave the cruise ship.

She had planned to scatter the ashes of her husband Barry at Monaco."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-north-east-wales-16648829

"As passengers who escaped from the listing vessel prepared legal action against Costa Crociere, one British passenger said she was suing after losing the ashes of her late husband during the evacuation.

Sandra Rodgers, 62, said she had been planning to scatter the ashes of her husband, Barry, when the cruise reached Monaco because he had dreamed of seeing the Monaco Grand Prix."

"The owners of the sinking Italian cruise liner Costa Concordia were not aware of unsafe practices involving ships coming close to shore to give tourists a better view, Costa Cruises chief executive Pier Luigi Foschi told a newspaper on Friday.

Costa has suspended Schettino and declared itself an injured party in the case, in which the captain is accused by prosecutors of multiple manslaughter, causing a shipwreck and abandoning ship before all the passengers were evacuated."

"Father Malena, the 73-year-old ship’s chaplain, who has worked for Costa for around 20 years, also praised the bravery of crew members amid panic during the evacuation.

“There were heroes of all nationalities… They were shaking with fear. They were threatened. They were telling people to stop boarding lifeboats which were full but people were getting in anyway,” he said.

The Catholic priest said he was also angry at some of the passengers, “who are going to sue because they have lost 30, 40 or 50,000 euros in jewels.”

Title: There are several remaining mysteries.
Post by: Host Mike on January 20, 2012, 03:46:55 PM

"There are several remaining mysteries.

** A major criticism of rescued passengers was that they were not told what to do and the crew was noticeably absent during the crisis. While a few crew members helped evacuate people, most passengers report that they didn’t see crew or the crew didn’t know what to do.Seven bodies were found at muster stations (where passengers meet to board lifeboats) in life jackets. This is the procedure passengers are told to follow during lifeboat drills, although crew weren’t present to tell them how to proceed.

** Costa Cruises CEO said Concordia made a close pass of Giglio Island last August although not closer than 500 meters. However several days ago the British shipping journal Lloyd’s List Intelligence said that its satellite tracking information indicated that Costa Concordia sailed within 230 meters in August, even closer than it did last Friday.

** Costa Concordia is on a fixed itinerary, sailing each week to ports in France, Spain and Italy and passengers embark and disembark in each port. The ship’s lifeboat drill was scheduled the following morning and roughly 600 passengers who boarded that day in Rome didn’t know how to proceed in an emergency. At present maritime law stipulates cruise ships must schedule lifeboat drills within 24 hours of leaving home port. Should laws be changed so than drill must take place before the ship leaves the port of embarkation?

** When Costa Concordia listed and sank into the water, most lifeboats couldn’t be launched. Should cruise lines be required to build ship with lifeboats sitting on deck instead of hanging over the side on davits?

** Why did the crew tell passengers to return to their cabins or walk in the hall, that it was an electrical problem — after water began pouring into the vessel?

** There was a 45 minute wait between the accident, when passengers were told it was an electrical problem, and the order to abandon ship was given. During that time the situation deteriorated rapidly. Why weren’t passengers immediately told to return to their cabins, get life vests and proceed to muster stations?"

"Italian prosecutors leading the investigation of the accident may seek to interview Domnica Cemortan, a 25-year-old Moldovan who has appeared in photographs during the cruise published by Italian newspapers, Corriere Della Sera reported.

Cemortan told Corriere in an interview published today that she bought a ticket so she could travel on the ship and spend time with friends on the crew. She said the captain stopped briefly, “at least a half an hour” before the accident, at the table where she was dining with former colleagues. “I’m not Captain Schettino’s lover,” she told Corriere, after hearing from friends in Italy who told her newspapers were reporting that she was involved romantically with him.

Costa Crociere said in a statement yesterday that Cemortan was a registered passenger on the ship. She told Romanian newspaper Adevarul that she had worked as a crew member on the ship and went to the bridge to help translate emergency messages into Russian for passengers as the Concordia was running aground. When she escaped the ship at 11:50 p.m., an hour after the evacuation was ordered, the captain was still on the bridge, she said."

The animation based on AIS navigation data shows the ship hitting an "exposed rock"

The report is based on information from the Automatic Identification System (AIS), an automatic tracking system used by vessel traffic services (VTS) to locate and identify ships.

It works by electronically exchanging data with other nearby ships and AIS base stations.

Marine radar is the primary method of collision avoidance for water transport, supported by AIS information."

According to a leaked transcript being quoted in the Italian media, Francesco Schettino - who has been put under house arrest - admitted making the mistake that led to the Costa Concordia hitting a rock.

"I was navigating by sight because I knew the depths well and I had done this manoeuvre three or four times," he reportedly said.

But this time I ordered the turn too late and I ended up in water that was too shallow. I don't know why it happened."

Title: Capt. Francesco Schettino only said he had "problems"
Post by: Host Mike on January 20, 2012, 04:57:00 PM

"The chief executive of the company that owns the Costa Concordia cruise ship says the captain who grounded it off the coast of Tuscany did not relay correct information to the company or the crew after the vessel hit rocks.

CEO Pierluigi Foschi told Italian state TV Friday his company spoke to the captain at 10:05 p.m., some 20 minutes after the ship was grounded but could not offer proper assistance because the captain's description "did not correspond to the truth."

Capt. Francesco Schettino only said he had "problems" aboard but did not mention hitting rocks.

Foschi said crew members were not informed of the gravity of the situation either."

"Francesco Schettino, captain of the Costa Concordia vessel that ran aground a week ago, told magistrates that he spoke to Costa Crociere SpA 10 times to tell the Carnival Corp. (CCL) unit what had happened, Corriere della Sera reported.

Schettino said he spoke to the person responsible for the crisis unit and asked for helicopters and tugboats because he thought the damage could be repaired, according to the Italian newspaper. He said he started to prepare for an evacuation and didn’t want to cause panic, according to Corriere. Schettino also told magistrates he thought the vessel would be pushed closer to the shore where it would have been easier to disembark, the daily newspaper reported.

"The sensors detected that the ship's bow was moving about 15 millimeters (half an inch) an hour and the stern about 7 millimeters (one-quarter inch) an hour, said Nicola Casagli of the University of Florence, who was called in by Italian authorities to monitor the ship's stability.""The sea floor drops off sharply a few meters (yards) from where the ship is resting, and Italy's environment minister has warned it risks sinking."

"It didn’t take long for Hollywood to pick up on the dramatic elements of the Costa Concordia cruise ship disaster.

Setting: Giglio Island off of the beautiful Italian coast.

Plot: Cruise ship captain seen drinking with a beautiful lady, cruise ship hits rocks, passengers flee in lifeboats, while some have seemingly vanished for good.

The real-life shipwreck that left 11 dead and 23 missing was a tragedy, and the powers that be in Hollywood are ready to cash in on the chaos, E! reports.

Dr. Phil already locked up interviews with two American passengers aboard the cruise ship.

“It’s just unbelievable,” survivor Georgia Ananias said in a clip set to air Friday on Dr. Phil’s talk show. “At that point, we didn’t know. One thing that we did know, though, it wasn’t just the captain that wasn’t there. None of the officers were there.”

The Discovery Channel is set to air a special that will “piece together” elements of the disaster."

Editor: Please tell me that Princess will never ever play a movie about this tragedy on the MUTS.

Title: Try to protect the environment or keep searching? That is the question.
Post by: Host Mike on January 20, 2012, 05:43:46 PM

"Less than 30 meters from where the ship is resting is the first of many terraced drop-offs that lead to 90-meter-deep waters. The 17 fuel tanks can withstand pressure of only 20 meters of water before bursting.

A fuel spill would flood the Giglio Archipelago, the largest marine park in Europe, comprising 150,000 acres of protected waters in which hundreds of species of marine life thrive, including giant swordfish, dolphins and monk seals. The islands are magnets for scuba divers, snorkelers, and birdwatchers, and are home to exotic birds, butterflies, and rare frogs.

The family members hoping for a miracle would prefer the salvage operations are held off a little bit longer.

On Friday, Albertini joined a group of family members who were accompanied by the Coast Guard to take a close look at the wreckage by boat. They have been told that there is very little chance of finding their loved ones alive, but they cannot yet give up hope. “Please don’t stop looking for my baby,” Albertini pleaded on a national television program this week. “Please bring her home to me as soon as you can. Don’t stop looking.”

Title: The disaster can wait, Domnica and I are hungry.
Post by: Host Mike on January 20, 2012, 06:07:56 PM

The captain of the Costa Concordia ordered dinner for himself and a woman after the ship struck rocks off Italy's coast, a cook from the ship told a Filipino television station.

In an interview with GMA Network, cook Rogelio Barista said Capt. Francesco Schettino ordered dinner less than an hour after the accident.

"We wondered what was going on. ... At that time, we really felt something was wrong. ... The stuff in the kitchen was falling off shelves and we realized how grave the situation was," Barista told GMA.

"I have had 12 years of experience as a cook on a cruise ship. ... I have even witnessed fires, so I wasn't that scared," Barista said. "But I did wonder, though, what the captain was doing ... why was he still there."

The mother of a two-year-old daughter is now wanted for questioning by investigators looking for more details about the run-up to the accident. Investigators are looking closely at her after father-of-one Schettino is said to have told them the former dancer was onboard with her husband - a blatant lie.

"A Costa Concordia crew member reportedly asks in this screen grab taken from an Italian television report for passengers to return to their cabins after the cruise liner ran aground off Tuscany Jan. 13, 2012.(Credit: Rainews24 via YouTube)"

"We'll resolve the electrical problem that we have with the generator," the female crew member tells passengers in Italian, according to the BBC. "Everything will be fine. If you want to stand here, it's fine.

"But I'm kindly asking you to go back to your rooms, where you'll be seated and tranquil. Everything is under control."

Title: Playboy captain with his own personal super-yacht and adoring young beauties
Post by: Host Mike on January 20, 2012, 11:31:15 PM

"Costa Concordia skipper Francesco Schettino was a self-confessed playboy who strutted round the ship with stunning women on his arm, his crew claimed last night.

They said he treated the £390million cruise liner as if it was his own personal super-yacht and hosted lavish dinners for glamorous guests at his table.

He apparently loved being treated like a celebrity on the 13-storey liner, which capsized off the coast of Italy last Friday killing 11 passengers.

On the fateful night, passengers said Schettino strolled into the restaurant with two young beauties on his arm – one of them Moldovan ballerina Domnica Cemortan, 25. She has denied they were romantically linked.

Another Filipino worker added: “He had women dining at his table with the other officers most nights. I never saw him drinking alcohol but it seemed like just being a captain gave him more of a buzz than getting drunk.”

Friends were used to seeing him sail the world’s 15th biggest cruise liner – capable of carrying 4,300 passengers and crew – “like a Ferrari” and upsetting harbour masters with reckless manoeuvres.

At the beginning of each cruise, Schettino would parade on the stage of the ship’s auditorium along with his fellow officers. He gave a speech, praising his crew and promising a cruise to remember, before toasting his colleagues with a glass of champagne.

He would then walk off the stage and back on to the bridge of the liner. Staff said they were used to seeing Schettino, 52, wining and dining beautiful women most nights of the cruise.

On the night of the disaster off Giglio, Schettino was in high spirits. He was joined in the Concordia Club by his two female companions around 9pm, drawing envious glances from passengers and crew.

Italian prosecutors have no clue who the mystery brunette was and are keen to interview her.

Costa bosses confirmed the blonde companion was Ms Cemortan – who later admitted being on the bridge of the ship when Schettino desperately tried to save it from disaster.

A senior source said: “To be honest, nobody quite knows what Captain Schettino was up to in those last few hours.”

Schettino also held court in the Concordia’s cognac bar – one of 13 bars on the boat.

British passenger Ricky Muir, from Glasgow, said: “He was treated like a star and clearly loved it. ”

A senior Costa official added: “It’s clear the captain did a lot of socialising, he was well known for it.”

"It looks like the only one responsible is the captain. That's what everyone on the outside (thinks)," Mayor Paolo Trapani said. "But in this village, people know he cannot be responsible for everything. It's not like journalists want to portray it."

Prosecutors have accused the captain of piloting the ship too fast to allow him to react to dangers, causing the shipwreck, according to legal papers.

Judge Valeria Montesarchio's initial ruling found Schettino changed the ship's course, steering too close to shore and causing the ship to hit a rock.

Earlier this week, Costa Cruises chairman Pier Luigi Foschi placed the blame for the wreck squarely on the captain, saying it was his choice to deviate from frequently traveled routes."

http://www.cnn.com/2012/01/21/world/europe/italy-cruise-main/

Title: All hope is now about gone
Post by: Host Mike on January 21, 2012, 06:47:16 AM

"We would need a miracle. Even if there was an air pocket because the ship is tilted, in these conditions, with the freezing water, the chances of finding someone alive are now remote," coast guard spokesman Cosimo Nicastro told AFP.

"But we will continue searching until all hope is gone," he said as the loud booms of the navy's micro explosives ricocheted across the tiny Giglio Island.

"Dr Cinquini insisted that the ship’s officers did their best amid the chaos and fear, even though video footage which emerged on Friday suggested the crew had told passengers to go back to their cabins as late as 10.25pm – more than 40 minutes after the collision.

The abandon ship alarm was only given at 10.58pm.

He reserved judgment on Capt Francesco Schettini, who is under house arrest and is expected to be charged with abandoning ship, causing a shipwreck and multiple counts of manslaughter.

He said: “I’d only known Capt Schettino for a little while. I know he’s a good sailor but the sea doesn’t forgive the arrogance of man.”

Title: Hard drive containing data of the voyage has been found
Post by: Host Mike on January 21, 2012, 04:44:18 PM

"Meanwhile, police divers, carrying out orders from prosecutors investigating Captain Francesco Schettino for suspected manslaughter and abandoning the ship, swam through the cold, dark waters to reach his cabin. State TV and the Italian news agency ANSA reported that the divers located and remove his safe and two suitcases. His passport and several documents were also pulled out, state media said.

Searchers inspecting the bridge Saturday also found a hard disk containing data of the voyage, Sky TG24 TV reported."

Title: The time line according to prosecutors
Post by: Host Mike on January 21, 2012, 05:00:37 PM

"The key to the night’s tragic events lies in the actions of the captain, now under house arrest facing charges of multiple manslaughter, causing a shipwreck and abandoning ship.

At around 9.05pm he was seen leaving the Concordia Club on Deck 11, in the company of Domnica Cemortan, an off-duty Moldovan member of the crew, and another officer.

A witness said the party had drunk at least a decanter of red wine, raising questions over Capt Schettino’s insistence that he drank no alcohol that night.

Prosecutors have established that the captain was at the controls of the Concordia 37 minutes later, when he steered the huge cruise ship onto rocks off the island of Giglio as he was allegedly trying to perform an "inchino" – or sail-past salute – for a former Costa Cruises captain and for the ship’s chief steward, Antonello Tievoli.

This risky manoeuvre appears to have been established practice for some Costa captains.

Also on the bridge was Miss Cemortan, who investigators now want to interview to shed light on what happened.

By 9.45pm the ship was listing by seven degrees and some passengers, beginning to realise that something was badly wrong, made phone calls to relatives, leading to the coastguard in Livorno being notified that the cruise liner was in trouble.

Mr Schettino only called his employers at 10.05pm – 23 minutes after the collision – reporting a problem with the ship. However when the Livorno harbour master’s office radioed a minute later the ship said it had suffered a “blackout”.

Twenty minutes later Livorno radioed again and Capt Schettino, 52, admitted water was entering the hull – but said there was no emergency. By 10.30pm the ship was listing by 20 degrees and he finally issued a May Day signal, waiting a further 20 minutes – at 10.58 – before ordering the ship to be abandoned.

Capt Schettino should then have waited for the ship’s passengers to be evacuated before leaving himself. However, witnesses saw him wrapped in a blanket getting on a lifeboat just over an hour after ordering the evacuation.

The captain told magistrates that when he did get onto a lifeboat it was only because he had “tripped” and fallen into the rescue craft while trying to help with the evacuation.

At 1.46am he picked up another call from the port authorities and was for a second time angrily ordered to return to his ship by Gregorio De Falco, the Livorno harbour master. However he was later spotted by a police patrol boat heading towards land in a life boat.

At 5am Capt Schettino called his 80-year-old mother Rosa, telling her: “Mamma, there’s been a tragedy. But don’t worry, I tried to save the passengers. I won’t be able to phone you for a while. Just stay calm,”

Title: Captain said he told the company about the impact and the scale of the damage
Post by: Host Mike on January 21, 2012, 05:09:03 PM

"Prosecutors say Schettino steered the vessel within 150 meters of Giglio island to perform a maneuver known as a "salute" - a greeting to the islanders. He has admitted that the boat came too close to shore but has denied bearing sole responsibility, saying other factors may have been involved.

According to transcripts of his questioning by prosecutors leaked to Italian media, he said that immediately after hitting the rock he sent two of his officers to the engine room to check on the state of the vessel.

As soon as he realized the scale of the damage, he called Roberto Ferrarini, marine operations director for Costa Cruises.

"I told him: I've got myself into a mess, there was contact with the seabed. I am telling you the truth, we passed under Giglio and there was an impact," Schettino said."

"Costa Crociere today denied that it offered discounts on other cruises to Costa Concordia survivors, according to an e- mailed statement. The Genoa-based company offered passengers assistance to return home and plans to refund all expenses, including the cruise fare, it said. "

Title: Why Cruise Lines May Not Be Safe After All
Post by: Host Mike on January 21, 2012, 08:48:48 PM

"Here are some zingers that stand in Carnival's (and other cruise corporations') way:

A former crew member claims that there is a, "... coded alarm which is known by the crew. This is done to begin evacuation without panicking the passengers". After this coded signal went out, crew were telling passengers not to worry and to return to their staterooms. If true, this statement seems to say that lying to passengers during a disaster is company policy. Did any of the dead heed the crew's instructions and go back to their rooms to die? Confusion in a disaster is to be expected. But, confusion among the leaders during a disaster speaks to a lack of training, drilling, discipline, and standards. How could Costa Cruises trust a man like Captain Schettino to command one of its ships? What ongoing certification does the line require of its officers and crew? Ship's captain's egos are traditionally large. The cruise lines embrace this tradition by building up their captains to be super-social directors whose job is smiling and posing with passengers. What proportion of a captain's duties are nautical and what portion are PR related? Are the proportions healthy? Safe? I think we need to know. International law requires that cruise ships be evacuated within 30 minutes. Unlucky passengers on the Concordia waited more than five hours on deck to be rescued. Some were screaming as the last of the lifeboats left. If the Concordia met safety requirements, then those standards are too weak. They must assume an evacuation in a perfect situation when there would be no need to abandon ship. No one abandons ship when everything is working and the ship is upright and sound."

Title: Was the crew also seemingly at fault?
Post by: Host Mike on January 21, 2012, 11:17:14 PM

"Schettino may be a culpable scapegoat, but what is emerging from the testimony of passengers and rescuers is that many of the crew were also seemingly at fault, as there appears to have been no properly co-ordinated attempt to get people safely off the ship.

The deputy mayor on the island of Giglio says he couldn’t find any officers on board to give direction to the panicking passengers.

‘After 20 minutes I couldn’t find anybody... there were a lot of people who wanted help but there was no one guiding them.’

It sounds horrendous: terrified people, water rising around them, fighting to climb up a slippery rope.

All of us like to think we would do the right thing should we ever be in a dire situation. Some suggest Schettino’s response was a classic ‘fight or flight’ response that he was not fully in control of.

In the conversation with the coastguard, he sounds distracted. Some even say his instinct to turn the ship back on to a rocky ledge ultimately saved many lives."

Unregistered passengers might have been aboard the stricken cruise liner that capsized off this Tuscan island, a top rescue official said Sunday, raising the possibility that the number of missing might be higher than the 20 previously announced.

"There could have been X persons who we don't know about who were inside, who were clandestine" passengers aboard the ship, Franco Gabrielli, the national civil protection official in charge of the rescue effort, told reporters at a briefing on the island of Giglio, where the ship, with 4,200 people aboard rammed a reef and sliced open its hull on Jan. 13 before turning over on its side.

Gabrielli said that relatives of a Hungarian woman have told Italian authorities that she had telephoned them from aboard the ship and that they haven't heard from her since the accident. He said it was possible that a woman's body pulled from the wreckage by divers on Saturday might be that of the unregistered passenger.

But the identity of that body and of three male bodies, all badly decomposed after days in the water, have yet to be established. Gabrielli said they have identified the other eight bodies: four French, an Italian, a Hungarian, a German and a Spanish national."

"'Disaster day-trippers' have flocked from all over Italy, many driving for hours, to see the 1,000ft-long, 14-storey luxury liner wedged at an angle of 90 degrees, ten days after it ran aground off the Tuscan island of Giglio.

But their curiosity has been criticised as "morbid" by islanders, who say they are being overwhelmed by the influx.

Ferries which run from the mainland port of Porto Santo Stefano to the island were full on Saturday and yesterday, with families and couples drinking beer and eating pizza on the smooth sandstone rocks and patches of sand opposite the capsized ship."

GIGLIO, Italy, Jan 22 (Reuters) - The captain of the cruise liner that capsized off Italy's coast has told prosecutors the vessel's operators, Costa Cruises, instructed him to perform a maneuvre that brought it too close to shore, according to leaked transcripts of his questioning."

Costa Cruises have said they were not aware of the dangerous practice of bringing the ship so close to the shore and have suspended the captain, saying he was responsible for the disaster.

But in a sign of the growing confrontation between Schettino and the ship owners, the captain told investigating magistrates Costa had instructed him to do the salute, according to transcripts of his hearing published by Italian media.

"It was planned, we should have done it a week earlier but it was not possible because of bad weather," Schettino said.

"They insisted. They said: 'We do tourist navigation, we have to be seen, get publicity and greet the island'."

He also said that the black box on board had been broken for two weeks, and that he had asked for it to be repaired, in vain.

In the hearing, Schettino insisted he had informed Costa's headquarters of the accident straight away, and his line of conduct had been approved by the company's marine operations director throughout a series of phone conversations.

He told prosecutors and the investigating judge, in documents leaked by the Italian media, that the company planned the salutes to time with local public holidays on the islands they were due to cruise past.

Schettino's latest claims were a direct contradiction of what Costa chief Pierluigi Foschi said last week at a press conference where he said a 'sail by had been authorised just once before' in the summer of 2010 off the island of Procida, close to Naples.

His version of events in the 135 page judicial document now raises serious questions over just what Costa Cruises knew the night of the disaster and it may explain why Schettino waited for more than an hour to raise the alarm and why he made a series of phone calls to company chiefs at their HQ in Genoa.

"Italian prosecutors are hunting for the laptop Capt. Francesco Schettino took with him when he abandoned his sinking luxury liner and slipped to a mystery blonde moments before he was arrested, Italian newspapers reported.

La Repubblica said Sunday prosecutors are especially hot to find the laptop “given the haste with which it changed hands.”

The paper said prosecutors had identified the woman as a lawyer, but that it was unclear if she was working for the cruise line or not.

Witnesses said Schettino had the laptop in a colorful plastic bag when he says he “tripped into a lifeboat” and fled the Costa Concordia after running the luxury liner onto rocks off the Tuscan coast Jan. 13, killing at least 30 people.

He claims the voice data recorder quit recording conversations that would show that higher ups had asked him to sail close to the island of Giglio as a form of swaggering “advertising” for the cruise line, La Repubblica reported.

“The Giglio salute on January 13 was planned with the company before we departed from Civitavecchia,” he said, according to excerpts from his 135-page statement leaked to the Italian press and published Sunday.

“We had meant to do it the week before, but it was not possible because of bad weather,” he said. “They insisted. They said, ‘We can be seen and we can get some publicity.’ So I said ‘okay.’”

Cruise line Costa Crociere, a subsidiary of Carnival Cruise Lines, has said Schettino deviated from the regular route without permission in an attempt to impress passengers.

In his statement, he also denied that the young blonde Moldovan dancer with whom he had dinner that night, Domnica Cemortan, was on the bridge proper when he ordered the “sail-by” of Giglio.

“She was on the threshhold,” he said. “She wasn’t on the bridge because I don’t let anyone there.”

The married skipper said he didn’t even know her last name. “She was our mutual friend who was on board, she had been part of the staff on other occasions,” he said.

"The suggestion of clandestine passengers raises the possibility that either a crew member or a passenger smuggled a friend on board the ship. Passengers might have been invited on board by a crew member at the last minute," said Francesca Maffini, Gabrielli's spokesman.

Another possibility is that some crew members were not registered properly because they were working on the ship illegally. Many of the crew were from India, Bangladesh, Indonesia and the Philippines."

The company, Costa Cruises, a division of Carnival Cruise Lines, denied Sunday that any unregistered passengers would have been on the ship and that it had condoned the close approach to this Tuscan resort island, where the 950-foot ship struck a rock on Jan. 13.

"Victims' groups and compensation lawyers are now looking at comments made by the Costa Cruises chief executive, Pier Luigi Foschi, to the Corriere Della Sera newspaper, in which he said: "He [Schettino] may have the odd little character problem, although nothing has ever been reported formally. He was seen as being a little hard on his colleagues. He liked to be in the limelight."

Last night, Carlo Rienzi, the president of Italy's national consumer group Codacons, said: "These comments [by Mr Foschi] will form part of the basis for our class action." Codacons is seeking a minimum of €10,000 (£8,300) compensation for all passengers.

Kendall Carver, president of the US-based International Cruise Victims group, said: "It's astonishing that company officials were aware of these 'character problems' but allowed him to have responsibility for over 4,000 people."

"Costa Cruises has transferred passengers with forward bookings on the Costa Concordia to a replacement ship it describes as "brand new" – but it is actually 20-years old and in dry dock in Genoa for a refit.

Anyone booked within the next two months is being offered a full refund, with a 30 per cent discount on a future cruise. From 24 March, Costa Concordia's place will be taken by "a completely new ship, Costa neoRomantica". In fact, the vessel was launched 20 years ago as the Costa Romantica. It is currently undergoing what the firm calls "an innovative total restyling". Customers who do not wish to sail aboard a ship 14 years older than Costa Concordia are being offered a refund, but only if they cancel within two weeks."

Title: The people who came up to the bridge were disturbing the ship's navigation
Post by: Host Mike on January 23, 2012, 05:07:12 PM

"The captain of the Costa Concordia was distracted by guests he had invited onto the bridge in the crucial moments before his cruise liner rammed into rocks off the Tuscan island of Giglio, one of the ship's senior officers has claimed.

Silvia Coronica, the vessel's third officer, also told investigators that Francesco Schettino panicked in the aftermath of the crash, rushing "from one part of the bridge to the other".

In the 10 minutes before the collision, he was seem chatting on the bridge with one of the ship's pursers and its head waiter, who had been asked up to the bridge to watch the liner perform a nautical 'fly-by' past his home island.

"The people who came up to the bridge with Schettino were disturbing the ship's navigation," Ms Coronica told investigators.

"The maitre d'hotel was chatting, disturbing the steering, with a consequent impact on concentration."

The ship was travelling at 15 knots as it steamed to within 150 yards of Giglio's coast – too fast for such a delicate operation, the officer added.

The evidence given to investigating judges also revealed scenes of panic down in the engine room, as water began to gush in through the hole torn by a huge lump of granite that was broken off from by the force of the impact.

"Descending down a stairway into deck B, I opened the door and I saw the tear in the hull and the water that was coming in. In the space of two minutes it was completely flooded," said Alberto Fiorito, the engine room's duty officer. "I opened the door to the main electrical room but there was already nearly two metres of water."

He was being interviewed by an Italian television network when a smartly-dressed middle-aged blonde woman employed by Costa Cruises swept into the lobby, ordered him not to do any more interviews, and whisked him away.

When he was interviewed by police in the nearby town of Orbetello several hours later, the computer was no longer with him.

Costa Cruises denied that its employee had obtained the laptop. "After contacting the person involved, Costa Cruises categorically denies that it has received anything at all from Capt Schettino," the company said in a statement."

(and)

"The huge quantities of food that the vessel was carrying – it was at the start of a week-long Mediterranean cruise and had on board more than 4,000 passengers and crew – was rotting and creating a terrible smell."

Title: Another mysterious women may be part of the story
Post by: Host Mike on January 23, 2012, 05:47:06 PM

"Legal maneuverings between Captain Schettino’s lawyers and Costa Cruises, which has sought to depict him as the only wrongdoer, took a new turn on Monday. Bruno Leporatti, Captain Schettino’s lawyer, said in a statement that other Costa Cruises officials, including its marine operations director, may share responsibility for the wreck of the 950-foot ship, which cost $563 million when it went into service in 2006.

Mr. Leporatti also said some emergency pumps and the water-tight doors of the Costa Concordia did not work, which may have caused the ship to list heavily to starboard. The vessel was designed to sink symmetrically.

Italian news reports on the shipwreck also added some mysterious elements to the convoluted aftermath. Newspapers said a mysterious woman, possibly a Costa Cruises lawyer or an employee, took Captain Schettino’s laptop computer the morning after the shipwreck from a Giglio hotel where he had spent a short time after coming ashore in a life boat. It was not clear how he would have managed to bring the laptop with him, given earlier accounts of the chaotic escape. Costa Cruises denied the reports. "

Title: Farther with child returned to ship cabin for his medicine and are now missing
Post by: Host Mike on January 23, 2012, 10:56:19 PM

"The Costa Concordia ship’s doctor fears the wreck’s youngest victim - a 5-year-old girl named Dayana - died because her distraught dad went back to their cabin for his medication.

Sandro Cinquini told Italian TV he was one of the last to see William and Dayana Arlotti alive in a crowd of panicking passengers on Deck 4.

“He was very worried, he kept repeating that he had to retrieve his medication,” Cinquini told Canale 5 TV.

Arlotti had recently had an operation, Cinquini said.

“I tried to make him understand that we were steps from the island of Giglio, that if he had already taken his medicine that day we had time to get more,” he said. “The girl was crying constantly. You could not console her.”

"Italian magistrates will be asked to investigate claims that Costa Cruises, owner of the Concordia ocean liner which ran aground off the Italian coast 11 days ago, tried to cover up a similar incident in 2005, when their Fortuna vessel allegedly struck rocks near Sorrento.

Roberto Cappello, who was working as an official photographer for the company at the time, said that the Fortuna appeared to hit rocks during a close approach to the coast near the southern port in May 2005. He said photographs he took showing the listing cabins and damage to the vessel were confiscated by company officials. His allegations will this week be passed to magistrates investigating the Concordia disaster, in which 32 people are feared to have died."

Paoletti, 43, who specialises in cave diving, has pulled more than a few decomposing bodies from shipwrecked trawlers over the years, but has never had to tackle anything close to the the size of the vast 17-deck Concordia.

"Making our way through the debris is difficult and tiring. Visibility ranges from 80 centimetres (30 inches) to 10 centimetres, and we have to check everything -- floating tablecloths, discarded clothes -- for bodies," he said.

The divers search the ship in pairs for security reasons and inch their way through the murky waters at a painstaking pace, often having to squeeze into confined areas where the risk of becoming trapped is great.

They navigate in a zig-zag movement to make sure they cover every area.

"We go down for 50 minutes at a time, with three oxygen tanks strapped to us, and leave one or two along the way in case we start to run out of air. If we're not back in that time, our back up races to find us," Paoletti said.

The ruddy-faced diver from Viterbo near Rome said he has always had a passion for caving and he goes regularly in his spare time. He also attends rigorous training courses with the fire service six times a year.

"One of the biggest risks is that you get tangled up in electrical cables snaking in the water. Scissors are one of the most important bits of equipment. During training, they cover your eyes with a mask, and wrap ropes around you.

"You then have a really short amount of time to cut yourself free... without cutting through your own safety cord -- because that's your life-line, you have to follow that cord back to find your way out of the labyrinth," he said.

This Costa Line seems out of control, were there no 'checks and balances' by the parent company..Carnival Corporation?

I have no time for Costa, I lost $4000 in airfares and accommodation when they rescheduled Costa Atlantica out of the New England Cruise I booked 2 years ago, it took me 10 weeks to get my cruise fare back, but no chance with the airfares and accommodation. Our insurance company would not pay out either on cruise ship rescheduling. >:(

Costa and their adminstration are the pits as far as I am concerned.

Title: One kiss led to another and another and another
Post by: Host Mike on January 24, 2012, 02:49:00 PM

"Since the Concordia accident, several Italian newspapers have published photos from passengers that appear to show some of the cruise line’s vessels sailing close to islands or picturesque bays such as Amalfi and the island of Procida.

Ron Starzman, managing director of Watershed Management Corp. in New York, said he was aboard Costa Crociere’s Deliziosa cruise ship in September 2010 when it came close to the island of Ponza, adjacent to Rome. “The ship rotated 180 degrees, sounded the horn several times and eventually pulled out, narrowly missing some shoals” by less than 100 meters, he said by e-mail.

Costa Crociere told Bloomberg News in a Jan. 22 e-mail that while a “touristic navigation” five miles from the coast was planned for the Concordia on its Jan. 13 cruise, it was up to the captain to ensure the safety of the route. Foschi said Jan. 16 that the only time he was aware that one of his company’s ships had been allowed to sail close to Giglio was Aug. 9-10, 2011.

"The search for the missing was continuing as were preparations for the removal of thousands of tonnes of potentially hazardous fuel from the tanks of the half-sunken Costa Concordia cruise ship. The actual pumping of fuel from the vessel's tanks is not expected to begin "before Saturday," Italy's chief rescue official, Franco Gabrielli, said. The procedure to remove the 2,400 tonnes of fuel is expected to last around three weeks."

The wife of Francesco Schettino, the captain who capsized the Costa Concordia cruise ship insisted that her husband "was not a monster" but admitted that he had once been fined for taking a motorboat too close to the coast.

"Our shared passion is canoeing – to paddle together you have to be in symphony, which is what Francesco and I are," she said. "But we got fined once, because we took a little motorboat too close to the coast."

"WEALTHY Russian passengers allegedly bribed Costa Concordia crew members to let them skip the queue for spots on lifeboats, it has been claimed.

Authorities are investigating reports from eyewitnesses who told Italian prosecutors that well-dressed Russians from first-class cabins stuffed wads of cash into the hands of crew members in a bid to be some of the first to board the lifeboats, the UK's Sun reported.

The disabled were also left to fend for themselves as the ship listed and began to sink, according to statements given to Italian officials.

Franca Anichini, 52, who lives nearby the shipwreck in Giglio, told German media that she was surprised to see so many men being brought to shore early on.

“I went to the boats as I saw them coming in expecting to see women, children and the injured but all I saw were healthy men and elegant women in evening gowns who were speaking Russian," Mr Anichini said."

Title: How did that advice from the Costa manager work out for you Captain?
Post by: Host Mike on January 24, 2012, 06:16:10 PM

According to AFP, the reports said that police secretly recorded a phone call in which Francesco Schettino told a friend he was following the advice of a manager about what route to take. The manager allegedly told him "pass through here, pass through there."

"In my place, another would not have been so ready to pass there, but they got to me with their 'pass through there, pass through there,'" Schettino said.

"The rocks were there, but the instruments I had weren't showing them, so I went through," he said.

"(Reuters) - The captain of the doomed Italian liner Costa Concordia said he was told by managers to take his ship close in to shore on the night it ran aground and capsized, according to bugged conversations leaked in Italian newspapers.

The daily La Repubblica published transcripts of a conversation Captain Francesco Schettino had with an unknown person identified only as Fabrizio in which he implicates an unnamed manager of the vessel's owners Costa Cruises."

"Costa's safety record isn't the only thing that should frighten passengers, say Walker and other legal experts. Also worrisome are the flimsy legal rights passengers have when they book a cruise, outlined in a legal document known as the ticket contract, which is available on the cruise line's website and is normally included with your ticket.

For passengers with future cruise plans, the contract delivers some bad news: If you want a refund, and you're within two weeks of departing on a European cruise, you're out of luck. (If it's anywhere between 44 and 15 days until your vacation, you can get half your money back.)

The contract is equally restrictive as it applies to the Concordia's survivors. The fine print limits the cruise line's liability to about $71,000 per passenger, requires that any claim against the company be filed within a year, restricts the filing venue to a court in Genoa, Italy, and applies Italian law to resolving the dispute.

For cruises from U.S. ports, Costa's contract limits the venue for filing lawsuits to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, effectively turning any lawsuit into a costly federal case. Other ticket language prevents smaller complaints from being brought together as class actions, further limiting passengers' access to justice, say legal experts.

Cruise line claims adjusters often send a series of letters to injured survivors, asking for more information. The time required for correspondence and documentation runs down the clock on any claims, according to David Deehl, an adjunct law professor at the University of Miami and the vice chairman of the American Bar Association's Admiralty and Maritime Law Committee.

"They're appearing to want to settle, asking for more and more information," he says. In fact, they're usually intent on paying the least they can under the law.

One place where cruise lines move quickly is in shoring up their own defense, Deehl notes. "They have their own civil defense lawyers who are often flown right to the ship to interview crew and passengers immediately, locking in their defense theories with sworn testimony," he told me."

"In a call at 10:32 p.m. on Jan. 13, about 45 minutes after the ship struck a reef that ripped a hole in its side and more than half an hour after his first call to Costa, Captain Francesco Schettino told Roberto Ferrarini, head of Costa Crociere's marine opertions department that the situation was under control. Two minutes later he called back to say that he was giving the order to abandon ship, Foschi said.

Schettino had a series of telephone calls with Ferrarini, after striking the rocks off the island of Giglio. In the first call at 9:57 p.m., about 15 minutes after the accident, Schettino said that the ship had struck bottom and that there was a blackout."

"Franco Gabrielli, head of Italy's national civil protection agency, told reporters that rescuers would keep searching the ship, which is half-submerged off the Tuscan island of Giglio, until every reachable area is inspected. "Finding someone alive today belongs in the realm of miracles," Gabrielli said. "But since none of us, at least inside, wants to give up on that possibility, we will continue."

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2105355,00.html

Title: Forschi is pointing the finger at all cruise ship companies including Carnival
Post by: Host Mike on January 25, 2012, 04:26:08 PM

"The owner of the stricken Italian cruise ship which capsized off the coast of Italy 13 days ago has admitted captains were sometimes encouraged to execute so-called '"nautical bows" as publicity.

The chief executive of Costa Cruises, Pier Luigi Foschi, is being grilled by a Senate committee in Rome over the Costa Concordia's crash.

Up to 32 people are feared to have died after the luxury liner hit rocks off the island of Giglio.

Mr Foschi told the Senate committee the umbrella company - Carnival Corp - did sometimes encourage its captains to sail close to the coast, saying it "helps enrich the product".

“Taking a tourist ship close to shore is allowed under certain conditions and is a practice adopted by all the cruise ship companies around the world,” Pier Luigi Foschi, chief executive of Costa Cruises, told the Senate on Wednesday."

"A statement from Costa said: 'With reference to news reports on discounts and promotional offers, Costa Cruises feels bound to point out that the company has never offered any discount on future cruises to guests who were on board the Costa Concordia for the cruise of January 13 and involved in the tragic accident.'"

"North America's largest cruise lines are not answering questions about whether they allow captains to take ships close to shore in so-called 'sail-by salutes' -- a practice that some are blaming for this month's Costa Concordia disaster.

USA TODAY's Cruise Log sent questions on the topic Tuesday to spokespeople for the six major U.S.-based lines that account for the majority of all cruises taken by North Americans, and by Wednesday afternoon none had answered the questions."

"COSTA Crociere, operator of the shipwrecked Costa Concordia, learned the vessel was flooding after hitting rocks off the coast of Tuscany within minutes of the accident and more than an hour before passengers were instructed to evacuate the ship, according to testimony the company delivered to the Italian Senate yesterday.

The testimony, by Pier Luigi Foschi, chief executive of Costa Crociere, a unit of Carnival Corporation, marked the company's first public acknowledgment that Captain Francesco Schettino kept the company informed of the crisis as it spiralled out of control.

The account also raised further questions as to why Captain Schettino and Costa Crociere waited until 10:58pm to sound the ship's evacuation alarm, more than an hour after it hit rocks on January 13, resulting in 16 confirmed deaths and leaving 19 people still missing.

Mr Foschi didn't say whether Costa Crociere's head of marine operations, Roberto Ferrarini, made attempts to contact the Coast Guard. A Costa Crociere spokesman declined to comment on the matter.

Mr Foschi said his testimony was based on a memorandum prepared by Mr Ferrarini, who fielded at least six calls from Captain Schettino in the 73-minute period between the ship's collision and the sounding of its evacuation alarm.

In his first four calls - between 9:57 and 10:33 - the captain described how water was spreading through the hull, making it harder for the ship to stay upright and afloat, Mr Foschi said.That account appears to undermine Mr Foschi's earlier assertion that Captain Schettino first warned the cruise line of an "unidentified" emergency at 10:06.

Mr Ferrarini "didn't understand that the situation was taking such an extreme form," Mr Foschi said. Mr Ferrarini and a lawyer for Captain Schettino - who is under house arrest on preliminary charges of multiple manslaughter and abandonment of ship - didn't respond to a written request for comment on Mr Foschi's testimony."

Title: All hope is lost
Post by: Host Mike on January 26, 2012, 11:07:18 AM

"Rescue workers searching the site of the Italian cruise wreck for missing people have said that the time had come to accept that there was no chance of finding survivors.

"We have gradually to accept the idea that in those conditions there is no more hope of survival," said Italy's civil protection agency head, Franco Gabrielli, who is running operations at the site of the Costa Concordia."

"Officials from Costa Crociere SpA met with consumer activists Thursday in an attempt to work out what could be a blanket compensation deal for uninjured passengers who were aboard the cruise ship that capsized off Italy’s coast.

The offer would take into consideration the price of the ticket, any costs incurred in getting home after the disaster, the cost of items lost aboard the ship as well as damages for the ruined vacation and trauma resulting from the accident, said Furio Truzzi of the consumer group Assoutenti.

The offer would not apply to the hundreds of crew aboard the ship, the roughly 100 cases of people who were injured or the families who lost loved ones. Sixteen bodies have been recovered since the ship hit a reef carrying 4,200 people, with another 16 people still missing and feared dead.

Truzzi said any damages agreed with Costa would be in addition to insurance policies taken out by passengers before embarking. He said 91 percent of the passengers had such policies."

Title: Oh, by the way, I have to abandon the ship.
Post by: Host Mike on January 26, 2012, 03:29:55 PM

"Foschi said Schettino first called Ferrarini at 9:57 pm (2057 GMT), about 10 minutes after the 17-deck Costa Concordia hit a rocky outcrop, tearing a massive gash in the hull.

"Schettino said that he had a big problem on board. He told Ferrarini that he had hit a rock and there had been a blackout. The captain said that only one of the sealed chambers was flooded," Foschi told senators.

In another call at 10:06 pm, Schettino told Ferrarini that a second sealed chamber was flooded "but said the stability of the ship was not in danger".

Schettino "was very calm and said the situation was under control", he said.

But at 10:33 pm Schettino said "the listing of the ship was increasing" and two minutes later he told Ferrarini that the ship would be abandoned.

"Ferrarini says he was completely surprised by the abandonment of the ship. He says that judging from the previous telephone conversations he could not have understood that the situation was so extreme," Foschi said.

Title: $14,500 to shut you up
Post by: Host Mike on January 27, 2012, 06:06:58 AM

"(Reuters) - Several of Italy's consumer groups signed an agreement with Costa Cruises to offer about 11,000 euros ($14,500) to each of the more than 3,000 passengers aboard the Costa Concordia when it hit a rock and capsized near the Italian island of Giglio on January 13, a statement from the consumer groups said.

The company has agreed to pay 11,000 euros for items lost and any psychological damages to each passenger who suffered no physical injuries. In addition, the cost of the cruise and all transportation will be covered. Passengers injured while abandoning the ship will be dealt with individually."

In answers to prosecutors, defense attorneys and a judge, Schettino has admitted he had made a "mistake" in colliding with the rocks off the island of Giglio.

"I hit this projection of rock, that seems almost stuck into the ship, but this was my mistake," Schettino said in the 126-page transcript. "... There isn't anything I can say, as I was convinced that passing within .28 of a mile there wouldn't be any problem.

The captain also brushed aside suggestions that at 15 knots, he was going too fast, as alleged by prosecutors.

"There isn't a speed limit," he said. "... We had more or less the speed needed to reach Savona on time."

According to the transcript, Schettino maintained he ran the ship aground to keep it from sinking. "This is what allowed me to limit the tilting," he said."

"Greszuk said he has been trying to piece together his life — getting a new driver's license, credit cards, passport and other identity documents — but is feeling abandoned by those responsible for his plight.

"I feel so lost and alone," he said. "Nobody is helping us out. Neither Costa nor the travel agency have contacted me — do you know how that feels? I called the travel agency and they said it's not our problem any more, call Costa. I called Costa and they said they'd get back to me, but as of today, I haven't heard a word."

•Why did the ship partially sink? Modern cruise ships are designed to remain afloat even after two of their water-tight compartments are breached, says Richard Pellew, who inspects cruise ships for the United Kingdom's Maritime and Coastguard Agency.

If the gash exposed three compartments or if the crew didn't properly seal them, he and others say, flooding could have spread and capsized the vessel.

"Any vessel that has such a collision could lose the game if response actions by the crew failed or were unorganized," says Anthony Davis, a retired U.S. Coast Guard officer."

"Transcripts released by the Italian coast guard have shown that the power failure came after the collision, when water poured into a gash in the ship's hill and into the engine rooms, causing a power black-out.

But Roberto Ferrarini, who was on duty in the command centre of the Genoa-based company that night, accused the captain of trying to fabricate a very different version of events - that the black-out came first, causing a loss of power that led to the collision.

Mr Ferrarini, Costa Cruise's crisis manager, told an Italian Senate committee that Capt Schettino had asked him to "agree with me the position to take with the authorities, to whom he wanted to say that the ship first had a sudden blackout, after which it hit the reef."

Mr Ferrarini said he had immediately rejected the request, telling the captain to come clean as to how the accident happened.

He said that on the night of the disaster, he exchanged 17 calls with the bridge of the stricken ship, which had passed perilously close to Giglio in order to perform a 'salute' of the island with its 17 decks lit up and its sirens sounding.

The first communication was at 9.57pm - 15 minutes after the vessel smashed into a large group of rocks known as Le Scole.

The captain allegedly told Mr Ferrarini that although the ship had hit the outcrop, only one of its water-tight compartments was flooded and it was still fully buoyant.

There were several more calls in the next half an hour, during which Capt Schettino told his colleague that while the ship had started to list, it was not in serious trouble. His tone and manner was "clear and calm", Mr Ferrarini.

By 10.35pm, however, the veteran commander's account of the accident changed radically - he said he intended to give the order to abandon ship.

Mr Ferrarini said he was shocked and surprised by the communication and accused the skipper of hugely under-playing the crisis."

Title: We were kept in the dark and abandoned says crew member
Post by: Host Mike on January 27, 2012, 06:45:22 AM

"Carnival Corp. (CCL), the world’s largest cruise-line owner, was sued in the U.S. over the Jan. 13 wreck of the Costa Concordia off the coast of Italy, which killed at least 16 people and left the vessel half submerged on its side.

The complaint, alleging negligence and breach of contract, was filed yesterday in federal court in Chicago by crew member Gary Lobaton, who seeks class-action status to represent all victims of the disaster off Giglio Island. The ship’s captain, Francesco Schettino, has been accused of causing the accident and abandoning ship.

“The defendants failed to properly and timely notify all plaintiffs on board of the deadly and dangerous condition of the cruise ship as to avoid injury and death,” Lobaton, who was living in Lima, Peru, said in the complaint. They “were abandoned by the captain.”

"The chief executive of Costa, Pier Luigi Foschi, told Italian lawmakers this week that “tourist navigation” wasn’t illegal, and was a “cruise product” increasingly sought out by passengers and offered by cruise lines to try to stay competitive."

Curious what folks think will happen with this ship. When I first saw photos, my first thought was "hope everyone gets out". My second thought was "what are they going to do with that monster ship'?

So the options are:

1. Refloat2. Chop3. Sink

This ship appears to be sitting on rocks on a shoreline, with a deep sea floor on the other side

Title: Did passengers agree to being on the next Titanic?
Post by: Host Mike on January 27, 2012, 03:48:55 PM

"Bern’s civil complaint against Costa Cruises and its operator, Miami-based Carnival Corporation, faces a major legal problem because of where the lawsuit is being filed, according to legal experts. Included in the fine print on the back of each passenger ticket voucher is a clause stating all lawsuits against the cruise liner must be filed in the country where the company is based. The headquarters for Costa Cruises is Genoa, Italy.

"The lawsuit really faces an uphill battle here in Miami, given the fact that the contract is enforceable," Jerry Hamilton, a Miami-based maritime attorney told FoxNews.com. Hamilton said the 120 American passengers on board the Costa Concordia "gave up their right" to where they can file a lawsuit when they boarded the cruise liner Jan. 13 in Civitavecchia, Italy.

"The accident occurred in Italy, the investigation is in Italy, the evidence and witnesses are in Italy and the majority of the passengers are Italian," said Hamilton. "The court will say that this lawsuit belongs in Italy."

But Bern claims the extraordinary nature of the accident off the Tuscan coast – which killed at least 16 people – should make the criteria on the ticket "null and void.""You don’t expect that when you get on this Costa Concordia ship in Rome that you are about to become the next Titanic," Bern said. "Nobody signed a contract," he continued. "They got their ticket" and in doing so, "agreed to those terms and conditions of which they had no knowledge."

"Nobody says ‘OK, now before you accept this, read the back of the ticket to make sure you understand how your rights are being limited,'" he said. "I can’t image any are aware of the limitation imposed upon [them] on a ticket," he said. While Hamilton said there is nothing preventing U.S. passengers from filing suit in Italy, he noted that under Italian law there is a cap on the damages.

Other attorneys claim filing a lawsuit in Italy is complicated, and costly for the plaintiffs involved."

"But many passengers are refusing to accept the deal, saying they can’t yet put a figure on the costs of the trauma they endured. And lawyers are backing them up, telling passengers it’s far too soon to know how people’s lives and livelihoods might be affected by the experience."

“If you consider that there were 4,200 people on board, you could say things went well, but if the captain hadn’t wasted a precious hour, it would have been comfortable,” Marco Brusco, head of the port captain’s service, a maritime authority, told a Senate committee hearing.

“The lifeboats could have been launched calmly, people could have been reassured. Instead of that, the first hour was lost, people were working under stress, he (Schettino) left and there were contradictory orders,” he said."

"MIAMI — While the parent company of the owner of the stricken Costa Concordia is based in Miami, passengers who want to file a lawsuit in U.S. courts over the cruise ship disaster probably will face choppy seas.

Maritime law experts say that similar attempts to sue in the U.S. despite these clauses have been turned away by the U.S. Supreme Court and that the expense of filing a lawsuit in a foreign court has deterred many plaintiffs in the past.

“It’s well-settled law,” said Jerry Hamilton, a maritime attorney who regularly defends cruise lines against lawsuits. “The Supreme Court has said those clauses are valid clauses. They will be upheld.”

Title: Company says that route safety is up to the Captain despite route being planned
Post by: Host Mike on January 28, 2012, 05:06:50 PM

"Carnival’s Genoa-based Costa Crociere unit said that while a “touristic navigation” five miles from the coast of Giglio was planned for the Concordia on its cruise, it was up to the captain to ensure the safety of the route."

"ROME — Rough seas and strong winds forced salvage crews to suspend preparations to drain the fuel from a half-sunken luxury liner off the Tuscan coast on Saturday, and officials said the conditions might keep them from resuming work until midweek."

"A Catholic priest who told his parishioners he was taking time off to spend a week at a spiritual retreat is going to have to explain to them how he came to be rescued from the wreck of Costa Concordia.

For Father Massimo Donghi had booked a cruise instead of locking himself away in prayer and meditation, and was caught out when his niece said on Facebook that he was among family members safe and well after the ship hit rocks two weeks ago.

"What do you want me to say?" the 41-year-old priest told an Italian news magazine. "I have nothing to add. I'm OK although I'm still a bit in shock. I will talk to my parishioners in church. The judgment of others is not important to me."

Maybe the Priest got one of those 'free cruises' given to clergy, to say Mass on the ship. One will never know.

Good luck to them. Don't we all go on cruises as a retreat of some sort?The recently retired Dean of Brisbane blessed our marriage on our 25th wedding Anniversary on the Pacific Princess a few years ago. My wife overheard him offering to hold a service on the Sunday whilst she was waiting at the reception desk and asked him if he would bless our marriage. He did not hesitate and performed a lovely service in his full regalia, that he just happened to have with him. This took place at the bottom of the grand staircase with our new Aussie friends, who we met on board, as witnesses. He did not ask for any reward but we gave him a bottle of a fine N.Z. Pinot Noir that we took on board, at his dinner table. I would say that he paid for his own passage, or his parishioners gave it to him as a retirement gift, but regardless he was still doing the Lord's work. God bless him. We are coming up to our 33rd anniversary in March and are still best cruise mates.

"Officials called off both the start of operations to remove of 500,000 gallons of fuel and the search for people still missing after determining the Costa Concordia had moved an inch and a half over six hours, coupled with waves of more than three feet.

University of Florence professor Riccardo Fanti said the ship's movements could either be caused by the ship settling on its own weight, slipping deeper into the seabed, or both. He also could not rule out the ship's sliding along the seabed.

Experts have said it would take 28 days to remove fuel from 15 tanks accounting for more than 80 per cent of all fuel on board the ship. The next job would be to target the engine room, which contains nearly 350 cubic meters of diesel, fuel and other lubricants, Gabrielli said.

Only once the fuel is removed can work begin on removing the ship, either floating it in one piece or cutting it up and towing it away as a wreck. Costa has begun the process for taking bids for the recovery operation, a process that will take two months.

Mr Gabrielli said the actual removal will take from seven to 10 months – meaning that the wreck will be visible from the coast of the Italian island of Giglio for the entire summer tourism season.

Residents of Giglio have been circulating a petition to demand that officials provide more information on how the full-scale operations can coexist with the important tourism season. At the moment, access to the port for private boats has been banned and all boats must stay at least one mile from the wrecked ship, affecting access to Giglio's only harbour for fishermen, scuba divers and private boat owners."

Maybe the Priest got one of those 'free cruises' given to clergy, to say Mass on the ship. One will never know.

Good luck to them. Don't we all go on cruises as a retreat of some sort?The recently retired Dean of Brisbane blessed our marriage on our 25th wedding Anniversary on the Pacific Princess a few years ago. My wife overheard him offering to hold a service on the Sunday whilst she was waiting at the reception desk and asked him if he would bless our marriage. He did not hesitate and performed a lovely service in his full regalia, that he just happened to have with him. This took place at the bottom of the grand staircase with our new Aussie friends, who we met on board, as witnesses. He did not ask for any reward but we gave him a bottle of a fine N.Z. Pinot Noir that we took on board, at his dinner table. I would say that he paid for his own passage, or his parishioners gave it to him as a retirement gift, but regardless he was still doing the Lord's work. God bless him. We are coming up to our 33rd anniversary in March and are still best cruise mates.

an 30 (Reuters) - Hours after the Costa Concordia's captain had abandoned ship, and after helping dozens of passengers to safety, Carlos Garrone stripped off his clothes and plunged into the freezing waters off Giglio island and rescued a drowning fellow crew member.

"I risked my life to jump into the water and save a drowning man. To know I saved a man makes me feel good about myself. For me it was a positive experience," he said."

"Some crew panicked because they didn't have adequate training," said Ignacio Benigno, 34, a supervisor chef in one of the ship's restaurants. "It was really difficult to prepare the lifeboats in that situation."

The company has defended the actions of the crew, which it credits for having saved the lives of more than 4,000 people on board, and said they had proper training.

"I must say with pride that the emergency evacuation of the ship was conducted exclusively by personnel on the Costa Concordia, from the officers to the regular crew members of all types and ranks," Costa Chief Executive Pier Luigi Foschi told Italy's Senate on Wednesday.

Foschi, who took over at Costa after 23 years in the elevator industry working for Otis Elevator, had no previous maritime or cruise industry experience."

"While crews are all meant to speak English, the same rule does not apply to passengers.

"On large passenger ships it is not unusual to have several dozen nationalities amongst the passengers and amongst the crew, and the experience of many accidents and in an emergency is people tend to revert to their own language," said Andrew Linington with the seafarers' union Nautilus International.

"Conveying some kind of complex announcement and instruction in a highly stressful situation is inherently difficult when (many) nationalities are involved," he said."

"The islanders of Giglio are threatening to sue Costa Cruises and its American parent company amid fears that the presence of the crippled Concordia liner will ruin their summer tourist season and deter big-spending celebrities.

The head of the rescue and salvage operation on the Italian island said at the weekend that it will take at least a year to either refloat the massive luxury liner or cut it into sections for scrap."

"Six passengers on board Costa Concordia during its ill-fated Jan. 13 cruise have filed a lawsuit against Carnival Corp. and its Costa Cruises brand in Miami’s federal court. They’re seeking $460 million in punitive and compensatory damages.

Court papers cited the guests’ terror when faced with catastrophic injury, drowning and death. The filing also claims that the crew didn’t respond professionally or appropriately – telling people to go to their cabins when guests themselves could clearly see the ship was in serious trouble and in danger of sinking.

In a separate action, a crew member from Peru has filed a $100 million lawsuit in federal court in Chicago, and that filing seeks class-action status. Undoubtedly, other cases will follow.

Codacons, a well-known Italian consumer group, has publicly said it plans to file a lawsuit in Miami, hoping to get between $164,000 and $1.3 million per passenger. There is no word yet, though, on whether that's officially been filed."

"Bookings are down significantly for the Miami-based cruise line Carnival, which owns the Costa Concordia, the ship involved in the accident in Italy.

Agents will now be awaiting the earnings report later this week from Royal Caribbean. They want to see if passengers are simply switching from Carnival to other lines -- or are deciding not to cruise at all.

Carnival isn't revealing just how much of a decline it has seen. But it says in the 12 days after the Concordia accident, bookings were down by a percentage "in the mid-teens" from last year. Still, the company says in its annual report to the Securities and Exchange Commission that it doesn't think the accident will have a "significant long-term impact" on its business."

"The family of a Minnesota couple missing in the Costa Concordia cruise ship disaster have said they accept the decision to end the search.

In a blog posting, the children of Jerry and Barbara Heil of White Bear Lake said they are 'certainly disheartened to hear the news' but understand.Italian emergency officials decided to end the search due to the danger posed to rescue workers."

Title: Thin film of oil has spread which is not alarming the authorities
Post by: Host Mike on February 01, 2012, 04:02:49 PM

"GIGLIO, Italy (AP) — A thin film of oil spread from the Costa Concordia cruise ship as waves battered the wreckage off Italy's coast Wednesday, adding to fears of an environmental disaster in the area's sensitive, pristine waters. Authorities were trying to assess how serious and extensive the spread was but said that so far it didn't appear alarming."

"In the chaotic evacuation of the Costa Concordia, passengers and crew abandoned almost everything on board the cruise ship: jewels, cash, champagne, antiques, 19th-century Bohemian crystal glassware and thousands of art objects, including 300-year-old woodblock prints by a Japanese master.

"It could just be a matter of time before anyone from common thieves to underwater teams run by the Mafia and specialising in recovering booty try to steal it.

"As long as there are bodies in there, it's considered off base to everybody because it's a grave," said Robert Marx, a veteran diver and the author of books on treasure hunting.

"But when all the bodies are out, there will be a mad dash for the valuables."

The Costa Concordia was essentially a floating luxury hotel. Many of the passengers embarked on the ill-fated cruise with their finest clothes and jewels so they could parade them in casinos and at gala dinners beneath towering chandeliered ceilings."

The young woman who, reports suggest, may have proved a distraction for the captain of the Costa Concordia liner as it ran aground three weeks ago with the loss of 32 lives, said she is "in love" with the disgraced officer.

It also emerged that divers retrieved her personal belongings from the cabin of Mr Schettino, who is married with a teenage daughter. Previously, Ms Cemortan said she had only been called to the ship's bridge after the accident to translate vital information that officers wanted to relay to Russian passengers.

Ms Cemortan soon emerged as a key witness to events as surviving passengers came forward to say that both she and the captain had dined together, with Mr Schettino consuming "several glasses" of wine shortly before the collision.

Ms Cemortan had worked for Costa Cruises as a dancer and passenger rep, but she was on the week-long cruise as a guest.

"It has been reported that she did not have her own cabin. La Repubblica newspaper offered an explanation for the unusual arrangement when it claimed that some of the former dancer's belongings were found in Capt Schettino's cabin, suggesting that they were sharing."

Title: Oh what a tangled web we weave. When first we practice to deceive.
Post by: Host Mike on February 02, 2012, 09:40:09 PM

"Ms Cemortan is a former employee of Costa Cruises, the company that operates the Costa Concordia.

"When the accident happened, I was on the bridge," she is reported as telling investigators.

The reported testimony contradicts that of the captain himself - according to Il Messagero newspaper - who told investigators that there were no non-crew members on the ship's bridge at the time of the impact."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-16860501

Editor: Ms. Cemortan is said to have previously claimed that she was not on the bridge when the ship hit the rocks. Oh what a tangled web we weave. When first we practice to deceive. (Sir Walter Scott)

Title: Help I've fallen and I can't get up
Post by: Host Mike on February 02, 2012, 09:59:30 PM

"The last person to be rescued from Italy's shipwrecked Costa Concordia has said he pounded on a wall with a frying pan to alert rescuers.

Manrico Giampedroni, the ship's purser, waited 36 hours before being rescued from the belly of the ship.

He has been released from hospital in Grosseto, Italy, where he was treated for injuries.

He described falling through a door into the ship's restaurant as he tried to save passengers.

"I remember ending up in the Milan restaurant... A door opened suddenly and I fell in," he said, describing being trapped in the room as tables and chairs moved in the water.

"To get the rescuers' attention, I used a pan to make some noise. From the windows, I could see the rescue teams and I tried to scream. When I saw the first fireman I embraced him. Those guys were incredible. In three hours I was out of there."

"The wreck of the Costa Concordia cruise ship will be re-floated and removed in its entirety rather than being cut up for scrap, a senior Italian official has said.

The salvage operation is expected to take up to 10 months, meaning that the ship will spend at least a year wedged on rocks in clear sight of Giglio's port and main settlement.

"This timeline represents the best possible outcome in a situation of this kind, although it cannot be excluded that there will be delays given the complexity of the operation," Genoa-based Costa Cruises said in a statement."

Title: Miscarriage claim to be filed for one million euros in damages
Post by: Host Mike on February 05, 2012, 04:12:41 AM

"A Pregant woman who miscarried after the cruise ship wreck off the coast of Italy last month is set to sue the vessel's owners for one million euros ($A1.2 million) in damages, Italian media says.

The 30-year-old Italian, identified only as Cristina M, was four months pregnant when she set off on the Costa Concordia cruise on January 13. Though she escaped the sinking ship in a lifeboat, she was admitted to hospital last week with a miscarriage.

Her doctors said she likely lost her baby because of the intense psychological stress suffered both during the night-time evacuation and when her lifeboat smashed up against rocks as it headed for the nearby shore.

Christina M's lawyers will add her to a class action against Costa Crociere and seek one million euros ($A1.2 million) in damages for the miscarriage, reports said."

"Leonardo Cherici, 34, from Civitavecchia, the very port from which Concordia set sail, was one of the first divers into the ship, smashing his way into the restaurant on deck four with an iron bar in what was initially a frantic hunt for survivors, but which turned into the sombre task of recovering bodies.

Those they recovered had to be carefully removed and taken to the surface in a delicate operation, as after days in the water any sharp movement could have led to damaged body parts breaking away in their hands.

Cherici was the first diver to find victims from the disaster – two elderly men who were both wearing life jackets.

‘They were next to each other by a muster station,’ he says.

‘And that’s what really hit me – they were so close to the lifeboats and so close to being saved. One of them was holding a woman’s handbag, which I later found out belonged to his wife.

‘The first thing we had to do was cut the life jackets off. If we don’t do that it’s like trying to carry a balloon underwater. You try not to get emotional, but it’s very difficult. We are not robots; we have feelings and emotions like everyone else.

When you see the victims wearing life jackets and so close to the lifeboats, you start asking yourself questions. Why didn’t they make it into a lifeboat? Why didn’t they jump into the water? You can only hope they were knocked out by the impact as the ship turned, otherwise if they were still alive they would have been in the dark and helpless, terrified as they were engulfed by a mountain of water.

‘That’s when you start to reflect on things,’ he adds.

‘These people were on a holiday and supposed to be enjoying themselves – they were all dressed very elegantly as if they were going to a party. The bodies I’ve recovered before from drownings have been in swimming costumes, not evening wear.’

‘The other problem we’re facing is that food and flesh are starting to rot down there and the water is getting very polluted.

'One of the guys told me that some of the water went into his mask and the stench was unbearable.

'That’s why after the last few dives we’ve had to disinfect the divers and the suits with sprays and detergents to make sure they’re not exposing themselves to any bacteriological risks. They’re being washed in units that are designed for germ warfare.’"

Title: Captain could be sentenced to more than 2.500 years in prison
Post by: Host Mike on February 06, 2012, 09:46:06 PM

"The captain of the capsized Costa Concordia could be sentenced to a cumulative total of more than 2,500 years in prison if convicted of causing a shipwreck, abandoning ship and multiple counts of manslaughter, it emerged on Monday. "

"In photos to be published on Wednesday, Capt Francesco Schettino is seen with Domnica Cemortan, 25, enjoying a seafood meal in Villefranche-sur-Mer on the Cote d’Azur.

The couple were photographed in the restaurant on Dec 13, according to Chi, an Italian weekly magazine.

Miss Cemortan reportedly told investigators last week she was “in love” with Capt Schettino, as Italian newspapers said that divers had found her lingerie, clothing and make-up bag in his cabin.

She denied both claims in an interview with another magazine, Oggi. “They are all lies. I wasn’t born yesterday. The information was put out to put pressure on the captain. They want to isolate him, even from his family,” she said.

“I never said to magistrates 'I love Schettino’. They say they’ve found my bikini in his cabin. What have they found on this bikini that connects it to me? Was my name written on it, was there my photograph, or my DNA?”

"In photos to be published on Wednesday, Capt Francesco Schettino is seen with Domnica Cemortan, 25, enjoying a seafood meal in Villefranche-sur-Mer on the Cote d’Azur.

The couple were photographed in the restaurant on Dec 13, according to Chi, an Italian weekly magazine.

Miss Cemortan reportedly told investigators last week she was “in love” with Capt Schettino, as Italian newspapers said that divers had found her lingerie, clothing and make-up bag in his cabin.

She denied both claims in an interview with another magazine, Oggi. “They are all lies. I wasn’t born yesterday. The information was put out to put pressure on the captain. They want to isolate him, even from his family,” she said.

“I never said to magistrates 'I love Schettino’. They say they’ve found my bikini in his cabin. What have they found on this bikini that connects it to me? Was my name written on it, was there my photograph, or my DNA?”

"While Nat Geo's "Italian Cruise Ship Disaster: The Untold Stories" premiers in the U.S. Feb. 12, touted as the first U.S. docu detailing the luxury liner disaster, Nat Geo's Italian outpost is producing another one-hour TV special with a more international focus, destined to air on most of its global 165 subscription channels outside the U.S. by March.

Italo production company Doclabs, which is producing the as-yet-untitled special, was on the scene a few hours after the ship carrying more than 4,200 passengers ran aground, killing 17 and injuring more then 60, with 15 others still not accounted for. But Nat Geo has also been using its global reach to run messages on its international channels urging survivors to upload footage and get in touch.

The onslaught of announced TV specials about the Titanic-like tragedy in Italy also includes Discovery Channel in the U.S., whose docu will be out this spring, and Channel 4 in the U.K., whose "Terror at Sea: The Sinking of the Concordia" aired Jan. 31."

"Eaves said he thought too much attention is focusing on the role of the captain, who has denied abandoning the ship. The lawyer said some crew members apparently failed to promptly inform passengers of the serious nature of the accident, and another issue is why the Concordia was sailing too close to the island's rocky coast.

"The captain is not the only one responsible," Eaves said, but the "entire cruise industry." In other words, the lawyer said, "We know the captain messed up, but the question is, why did he mess up?"

Maybe because of stupidity in operating a ship that size that close to shore. Oh sure, his superiors didn't tell him it might be a bad move to do anything that dangerous and therefore he shouldn't be held fully responsibly if anything did happen.

"Italian divers risked life and limb to rescue a teddy bear that a child had left behind on the Costa Concordia during the chaotic evacuation of the cruise ship last month.

The child's father told rescuers that the little boy had been unable to sleep since the disaster and desperately missed his toy.

He wrote to islanders who had given shelter to him and his son after they were brought ashore when the 950ft long vessel ran aground on the Italian island of Giglio on the night of Jan 13.

Islanders passed the letter to the island's mayor, Sergio Ortelli, who in turn gave it to rescue divers, who entered the hull on a special mission, finding the cabin where the boy had been staying and retrieving the soft toy – bedraggled but intact.

They found the bear hidden in a tangle of debris – overturned tables, chairs, mattresses and scattered luggage."

Title: God would have made it alright for me if I hadn't set the rudder to starboard
Post by: Host Mike on February 09, 2012, 04:44:03 PM

"But as he came to within a quarter of a nautical mile of the coast, in water he believed to be deep enough to be safe, he saw foam breaking on what appeared to be a submerged outcrop and turned sharply, exposing the side of the hull to the sharp rock.

"I may have done something rash, I did do something rash, but God would have made it alright for me if I hadn't set the rudder to starboard," he told magistrates investigating the accident, according to a transcript."

"Italian divers risked life and limb to rescue a teddy bear that a child had left behind on the Costa Concordia during the chaotic evacuation of the cruise ship last month.

The child's father told rescuers that the little boy had been unable to sleep since the disaster and desperately missed his toy.

He wrote to islanders who had given shelter to him and his son after they were brought ashore when the 950ft long vessel ran aground on the Italian island of Giglio on the night of Jan 13.

Islanders passed the letter to the island's mayor, Sergio Ortelli, who in turn gave it to rescue divers, who entered the hull on a special mission, finding the cabin where the boy had been staying and retrieving the soft toy – bedraggled but intact.

They found the bear hidden in a tangle of debris – overturned tables, chairs, mattresses and scattered luggage."

Title: It's all over but the shouting
Post by: Host Mike on February 10, 2012, 10:31:38 AM

"In my opinion, the captain is the only one responsible for this disaster," said Carlos Garrone, an engineer who lives in Valencia, Spain. "The decision-making responsibility lies with the captain. It's all up to him."

Schettino himself insisted that he had tried unsuccessfully to return to the ship after falling on to the roof of a lifeboat, but he admitted that he had been devastated by the disaster.

"Everyone had life vests on, but for me...well my life at that moment had been destroyed, I wasn't interested in life vests ... it was over for me," he said."

"The 10 minutes of film, screened on Italian TV news channels, shows for the first time the reaction of the ship's captain and crew as they dealt with the situation after several water-tight compartments on the 114,500-ton ship were breached.

In the footage, a man identified as Mr Schettino can be seen speaking on the telephone in the half light of the bridge, illuminated only by emergency lights after the power failed on the liner with more than 4,000 passengers and crew on board.

At one point in the film, almost 45 minutes after the ship had hit the rocks, an officer is heard shouting: "Captain, the passengers are starting to get into the lifeboats on their own."

Mr Schettino appears to reply: "Whatever... whatever... OK."

http://news.sky.com/home/world-news/article/16167872

Title: The number one secret of cruising: "The ship moves"
Post by: Host Mike on February 11, 2012, 05:35:06 PM

"Italian officials say rough seas have increased movements of the crippled Costa Concordia and are thwarting the start of fuel removal a month after the cruise ship capsized off a Tuscan island.

The national office overseeing search and anti-pollution operations said Friday that instruments registered increased and faster movements of the ship, which is resting on its side just outside Giglio island's port. But they said the movements have since slowed down. If the ship keeps shifting, it could drop down onto deeper seabed, complicating plans to remove fuel."

"An American company is likely to salvage the capsized cruise ship Costa Concordia, which ran aground off the Italian island of Giglio in late January.

The Costa Concordia’s insurance company has invited Bisso Marine, a fifth-generation family business in New Orleans and Houston that has salvaged some of the world’s biggest shipwrecks since 1980, to the ship’s wreckage.

“This barge averages 300 days a year doing salvage work. With enough time and money you can do any job,” CBS News quoted Bisso Marine’s head Beau Bisso, as saying."

Title: Hope is the last thing to die
Post by: Host Mike on February 14, 2012, 08:13:05 AM

"GIGLIO, Italy -- Tossing bouquets of red roses into the sea, the relatives of people still missing one month after the Costa Concordia cruise ship disaster mourned in a private tribute Monday.

The family members boarded a small boat that took them 50 meters (yards) from the stricken cruise ship, which struck a reef Jan. 13 off the Tuscan coast when its captain made an unauthorized maneuver. Seventeen people died while trying to flee and 15 remain missing and are presumed dead.

The search for the missing was called off after authorities determined it was too risky for the rescue divers.

Among family members at the scene of the tragedy was Susy Albertini, the mother of 5-year-old Dayana Arlotti, who was traveling with her father William, who is also missing. Kevin Rebello, the brother of a missing waiter from India, also attended, as did the families of missing French and German passengers.

The relatives hugged each other as the roses floated on the Mediterranean. Rebello said Monday's anniversary was the hardest day yet since the shipwreck.

"I haven't lost hope yet, anything can still happen, a miracle. He may be injured, he may have lost consciousness, anything may have happened. I still have hope, I always have hope, hope is the last thing to die," Rebello said. "I hope I will find him as soon as possible, to bring him home."

Title: Carnival left us with the aliens?
Post by: Host Mike on February 14, 2012, 08:22:59 AM

"The lawsuit in a state court in Florida, where the cruise operators are based, now includes 39 plaintiffs, each of whom is seeking individual damages for unique losses and injuries, their attorney Mark Bern said in a statement.

"The plaintiffs will seek punitive damages as a result of the nature of the conduct of the Costa Concordia's officers and staff, which demonstrated a reckless disregard for human life and property," the statement said on Monday.

"These passengers were left terrified and unguided in a desperate situation while the captain was already safely in a lifeboat with his clothes dry and his luggage in hand," Bern said.

"Once the surviving passengers reached land, their ordeal was far from over, because Carnival failed to offer them the barest courtesies and assistance, leaving them in a country where most were aliens, with only the clothes on their back, no money and no passports."

Title: Big gaping hole, water is coming in, the engines are going to hell, so we wait
Post by: Host Mike on February 14, 2012, 08:34:42 AM

"In the dim emergency lighting on the bridge, the red and blue lights on monitoring screens are barely visible but it is possible to make out the captain, Francesco Schettino, and a dozen or so colleagues.

They are scanning the screens, telephoning and talking among themselves, initially fairly calmly but with growing tension as alarming news came from the engine room.

"The engines are not responding and going to hell," can be heard on the tape. "There is a big gaping hole and the water is coming in," someone else says.

"Wait until we get into shallower waters near the bank, at how many metres are we?"

Later someone can be heard announcing: "Captain, the passengers are starting to get into the lifeboats by themselves."

Title: Domnica may have taken the previously secret video
Post by: Host Mike on February 14, 2012, 08:43:35 AM

"But after less than 30 minutes, with the ship listing at 20 degrees, disarray has set in.

A man identified as captain Francesco Schettino is seen talking on the phone while a senior colleague shouts: “What do we do?”

Then, 25 minutes before the "abandon ship" signal is given, one officer is heard saying: "Passengers are getting into the life boats", to which a man believed to be Schettino replies: "Vabbuo", which means "whatever".

The film also appears to reveal officers saying they were leaving the ship 10 minutes before the order was given to passengers.

The Corriere della Sera newspaper speculated that the sounds of heels near the mystery cameraman or woman meant that the married captain's presumed lover, Domnica Cemortan, 24, may have taken the video."

Title: How to become a "Captain Coward" lookalike at the Milan Festival
Post by: Host Mike on February 17, 2012, 10:24:52 PM

"Captain Francesco Schettino’s costume is in high-demand for the annual ‘Milan Festival’ where Milanese dress up as famous public figures.

According to The Daily Mail, the usual Silvio Berlusconi parodies have been dropped this time in favour of Schettino, the man branded ‘Captain Coward’ for fleeing the sinking ship after it struck rocks off the Italian coast in the Mediterranean.

A famous Italian boutique Bottega del Carnevale in Brera has reproduced the white linen shirt and a hat wore by Schettino, and is retailing for more than 40 pounds."

"THE Italian region of Tuscany has invited tourists to visit the island of Giglio - the scene of a cruise ship disaster last month that locals fear could destroy the local economy.

"We will ensure that the island of Giglio is favoured in our campaigns but the main promotion is for everyone to make a gesture of love by going to Giglio," said Cristina Scaletti, head of Tuscany's tourism department.

I went there last year on holiday and I will be going back this year with my whole family,'' Scaletti said on the sidelines of a tourism fair in Milan."

"Italian cruise ship operator Costa Crociere said Friday it was taking legal action against a woman who falsely claimed to have suffered a miscarriage as a result of the Costa Concordia tragedy last month.

"The company has confirmed that neither the woman nor her husband was on the Costa Concordia's guest list," Costa Crociere said in a statement, referring to a couple who had asked for 1.0 million euros ($1.3 million) in damages.

Costa Crociere said it "intends to file a complaint with the legal authorities and that it will take similar action in response to any similar scams or attempts at profiteering in the wake of the Concordia tragedy.

"The woman was purportedly five months pregnant when she went on the cruise and lost her baby several days after escaping the stranded ship off the coast of the island of Giglio," the company said.

It said an Italian television programme "investigated the claims and discovered that the whole story was in fact made up: the couple were using false identities and neither of them had been on board".

"ROME (AP) – A group representing survivors of the capsized Costa Concordia cruise ship say traces of cocaine were found on a sample of the captain's hair but not within the hair strands or in his urine — which would have indicated he had used the drug.

Italian consumer protection group Codacons said Saturday it has asked prosecutors investigating Captain Francesco Schettino to order another test.

It says analyses show no evidence of cocaine in Schettino's body. But Codacons says traces of cocaine were found on hair samples and in an envelope containing the hair."

The cocaine was not found within the actual fabric of Schettino’s hair or in his urine – the usual signs that someone ingested the drug.

Stefano Zerbi, representing some of the survivors, described the results as ‘very strange’, saying he believed the samples ‘more than anything else, had been badly preserved and contamination might have resulted’.

Experts have also suggested that Schettino may have been around the cocaine even if he did not consume any.

Documentary on Concordia disaster airs on Australian TV, tonight Sunday. It is a British production based on pax camera phone footage taken during all stages of the incident. Has it been shown on US TV yet?

In the U.S. Nat Geo's "Italian Cruise Ship Disaster: The Untold Stories" was aired.

Title: "Schettino himself had said he was taking tranquilizers before the accident"
Post by: Host Mike on February 18, 2012, 09:55:49 PM

"Codacons, whose own experts were present at the tests, said the results were unreliable as they had also failed to show signs of tranquilizers that Schettino himself had said he was taking before the accident."

(AGI)Grosseto- The prosecution for the Costa Concordia case appealed against the decision to place the captain under house arrest. The public prosecutor's office of Grosseto seek to overturn the decision by the appeals tribunal in Florence which confirmed Francesco Schettino's sentence to house arrest on February 7.

Title: When it comes to love I want a slow hand
Post by: Host Mike on February 24, 2012, 03:59:04 PM

"The captain of the Costa Concordia slowed the ship down so that he could enjoy dinner with a Moldovan ex-dancer and then speeded up as he approached the island of Giglio in order to make up time, prosecutors alleged today."

I want a man with a slow hand I want a lover with an easy touch I want somebody who will spend some time Not come and go in a heated rush I want somebody who will understand When it comes to love I want a slow hand - Pointer Sisters

"On Wednesday, cruise ship owner Costa Crociere said seven other employees including three executives, were also under investigation for their role in the January 13 tragedy, in which 32 people are thought to have died."

Title: Charges for "possible" environmental damage to be taken
Post by: Host Mike on February 24, 2012, 04:09:12 PM

"ROME — Italy Thursday said it was taking legal action against the company of the capsized Costa Concordia cruise ship to pay for possible environmental damage and the cost of dealing with the wreckage.

The environment ministry said it was taking legal action "in view of a possible claim for damages to the environment" from the luxury liner which ran aground on a reef off a Tuscan island on January 13, killing 32."

Eight more bodies were found Wednesday aboard the shipwrecked Costa Concordia, Italian officials said Wednesday, and seven cruise line employees were being investigated.

The bodies were all found on a part of the ship known as bridge four, which is under water, Italian civil protection officials said. The discoveries raise the number of confirmed dead to 25, with seven people still missing."

Title: Remains of Dayana Arlotti have been located
Post by: Host Mike on February 24, 2012, 05:16:22 PM

"Eight more bodies have been found inside the crippled cruise ship, including that of a five year old girl."

(http://www.topnewstoday.org/i/news/img_1642846.jpg)

http://world.topnewstoday.org/World/article/1642846/

Title: Was Captain Schettino making out with Domnica on the bridge before the crash?
Post by: Host Mike on February 27, 2012, 05:04:42 PM

Domnica Cemortan said she was flirting with Captain Francesco Schettino on the bridge before the ship struck rocks Jan. 13, The Mail on Sunday reported.

The newspaper said it was possible that the smitten captain may have been trying to impress the 25 year old when the ship crashed, as early reports had

Cemortan revealed that she shared a passionate kiss with 52-year-old Schettino, but denied that they were lovers.

She said, "They are acting as if I'm some sort of femme fatale, but I don't sleep around. Yes, I was very attracted to Captain Schettino, and he was clearly interested in me. I admit that I had a big crush on him because he was very good-looking and very charming."

Cemortan worked on the ship for three weeks, but when her contract ended, she bought herself a ticket for the remainder of the ill-fated cruise. She claimed that her belongings, found in Schettino's cabin, were being stored there as a temporary measure.

"I admit that I was attracted to him, but honestly, we did not have sex," Cemortan said.

However, she went on, "He was always respectful when I was a member of his staff, but once I was a passenger, then it was different. I think we probably would have ended up in bed, eventually, but I never found out because of the crash."

"According to one report, rescue workers searching the stricken vessel found her dresses, underwear, cosmetics and other effects in his cabin."

"Cemortan first entered the tangled story of the wrecking of the Costa Concordia when a retired Italian couple told their local newspaper they had watched from a nearby table as the captain entertained a young woman at dinner. They claimed Schettino had drunk copious amounts of wine before heading back to the bridge."

"Ms Cemortan admits that not only had she been alone with Mr Schettino in his cabin earlier during the evening of the tragedy, but that they had shared a passionate kiss, which she suspects was a prelude to them becoming lovers."

Guess we are no longer going to hear from the wife of the Captain telling us what a wonderful person, husband & family man the Captain is...? Quite clearly the Captain was living in two different worlds...

Title: Wow, information from a TV show - will wonders never cease?
Post by: ccrain on February 28, 2012, 07:28:35 PM

I must admit, after watching both the NATGEO and the DISC shows, the DISC show was the better of the two in that it finally explained the change of course, after hitting the rocks, that Concordia took that saved so many lives.

I first thought the Capt had turned the ship and tried to beach her, but without any power, that wasn't possible. The DISC show, with their track and expert commentary showed that the winds essentially blew the ship into the rocks and saved many lives. Had she been in deeper water she would have capsized and taken a lot of people with her.

Title: Re: Wow, information from a TV show - will wonders never cease?
Post by: f-mattox on February 28, 2012, 10:58:27 PM

I must admit, after watching both the NATGEO and the DISC shows, the DISC show was the better of the two in that it finally explained the change of course, after hitting the rocks, that Concordia took that saved so many lives.

I first thought the Capt had turned the ship and tried to beach her, but without any power, that wasn't possible. The DISC show, with their track and expert commentary showed that the winds essentially blew the ship into the rocks and saved many lives. Had she been in deeper water she would have capsized and taken a lot of people with her.

Very interesting; I have not heard any of this. I know it's not much comfort to those involved in the disaster, but it could have been much worse.

Title: Participants acknowledged that the search for truth and justice will be long
Post by: Host Mike on March 06, 2012, 08:21:11 AM

"GROSSETO, Italy — The first hearing of the criminal investigation into the Costa Concordia's shipwreck was held in a theater Saturday instead of a courthouse because of high demand, with angry survivors seeking compensation, justice and the truth.

The judge at the hearing assigned four experts to analyze the cruise ship's data recorder and ordered them to report their findings in July, confirming predictions by Prosecutor Francesco Verusio that examination of the data, as well as of conversations involving officers on the ship's bridge, could take months.

Prosecutors must decide whether to seek a trial against the captain, other top officers and officials of Italian cruise company Costa Crociere SpA, which is owned by Miami-based Carnival Corp. Crucial to their decision could be what the experts determine are such details as the Concordia's velocity when it slammed into a reef the night of Jan. 13 off Giglio island, its exact route and what commands were given by whom and when.

Participants acknowledged that the search for truth and justice will be a long one."

Title: Captain was in command while blind and tipsy?
Post by: Host Mike on March 06, 2012, 08:25:20 AM

"GROSSETO - The captain of the wrecked Costa Concordia cruise liner was not wearing his glasses on the evening of the accident and asked his first officer to check the radar for him, the officer's lawyer said on Saturday."

http://www.jpost.com/Headlines/Article.aspx?id=260297

"On the night of the disaster, captain Schettino was on the bridge and said he had forgotten his glasses . . . he'd left his glasses in the cabin," she quoted the officer as saying.

"He also claims that Schettino ordered officials to tell the coast guard that everything was under control," McKenna said, adding the officer insisted the captain deliberately ordered them to lie.

The first officer also said Schettino repeatedly asked him to check the radar for him that night. "

"It was also claimed that Capt Schettino had previously crashed another cruise ship.

In June 2010 he sailed the Aida Blu cruise ship too fast into the German port of Warnemunde causing damage.

“I did not know the speed limit and have not received notification of an infraction from the relevant authorities,” Capt Schettino told his employers in writing, adding there were “probably other factors” behind the crash."

"Leaked documents published on Thursday contained claims of a hard-partying atmosphere on board two Costa Crociere ships including the Costa Concordia, with officers seen snorting cocaine and getting drunk on a regular basis.

The revelation was made as former Costa Cruises employees told prosecutors investigating the Concordia disaster that officers 'took drugs' while on duty and molested female staff members.

One woman, a nurse identified only as Valentina B and who worked with under fire Concordia skipper Francesco Schettino, claimed he regularly 'used women as goods to be bartered with.'

She described how she had been on the liner Atlantica with spineless Schettino, 52, who is accused of abandoning the Concordia after he steered it on to rocks and left more than 30 people dead, for a month between January and February 2010.

Her damning revelations to investigating prosecutor Francesco Verusio, were published by La Stampa newspaper and she said of her experiences with Genoa based Costa: 'I found corruption, prostitution and drugs.

'Do not tell me it’s my word against them - I saw directly with my own eyes senior officers take cocaine.

'To prove it all you need to do is carry out an examination of their hair.'

Her claims come just days after a cocaine test on strands of Schettino’s hair tested positive for cocaine but his legal team have asked for a second examination as they dispute the results and he has insisted that he does not drink or take drugs.

Other survivors recalled the chaos aboard the ship as it listed to one side, accusing the captain of abandoning the ship and the crew of incompetence.

Schettino "did not slip or fall onto a life boat," as he has claimed. "I saw him as he abandoned the ship with four other people," Giuseppe Grammatico, a passenger who now acts as a lawyer for a Sicilian family, told the online edition of daily Corriere della Sera.

The three experts appointed by judge Valeria Montesarchio were also tasked with assessing whether the proper evacuation procedures were adopted by the crew."

"More likely, salvagers would rely on cranes. It would not be easy—the wreck is far too massive for any single crane, Lacey says. The cranes not only would have to turn the ship upright, but hold it in place to keep it from sliding downward. To make their task easier, salvage teams would want to pump out as much water as possible, which would mean patching the massive gashes in its hull so that water does not rush back in, says Peter Tromp, manager at Dutch wreck removal company Euro Demolition.

Tromp doubts it could be done. Euro Demolition and Texas-based salvage firm T&T Bisso are partnering on a proposal to cut up the ship. "We think there's too much weight and too much damage to refloat it," Tromps says. Using cranes armed with metal shears capable of slicing five-centimeter-thick steel, the companies would carve the wreck into liftable chunks 200 to 300 metric tons in weight. Afterward, they would use electromagnets three meters in diameter to clean the seafloor of debris.

Towing, if it can be done, would be faster. "I've heard it's feasible to do it within six months," Lacey says. If Tromp and his colleagues do end up doing a chop job on the Costa Concordia, they estimate they can have it done in eight to 10 months."

"Costa Concordia is being written off as a total loss by parent company Carnival Corporation.

The company is to receive $515 million in insurance for the crippled vessel which run around with 4,200 passengers and crew on board with the loss of at least 25 lives off the Italian island of Giglio in January.

This will offset the value of the six year old vessel which has been deemed to be a “constructive total loss”. It was originally thought the ship could have been salvaged."

Title: Arison first learned about the ship disaster on Twitter while Foschi was away
Post by: Host Mike on March 11, 2012, 10:18:20 PM

Micky Arison learned of the disaster aboard one of his company’s ships in January the way many of the rest of us did: via social networking.

He said he immediately emailed Costa Crociere chairman and CEO Pier Luigi Foschi, who was on a ship in the Caribbean. At that point, neither knew the grounding of the Costa Concordia with more than 4,200 people on board would turn into a disaster that killed 25 and left seven others missing."

“Costa is beginning to see light at the end of the tunnel, but it will take some time to get there,” [Carnival Corp. vice chairman and chief operating officer Howard] Frank said in the teleconference call with analysts. “So there should be no doubt, we view Costa as a great company and a great brand, with a terrific management team and with a great future.”

Title: It was just an accident (waiting to happen)?
Post by: Host Mike on March 11, 2012, 10:34:07 PM

“Obviously, I am very sorry it happened,” the Carnival chairman and CEO told the Herald. “When you have 100 ships out there, sometimes unfortunate things happen, but as I said, it was an accident. We as a company do everything we can to encourage the highest of safety standards.”

“I believe they’ll work their way through this. It was a terrible, terrible, terrible accident, but that’s what it was,” said Arison, who also owns the Miami Heat."

The stricken cruise liner Costa Concordia off the Isola del Giglio in January 2012. Greenpeace warned that chemicals from a cruise ship wreck were oozing into the sea around Italy's picturesque Giglio Island but the environment ministry said the levels were not "significant".

"ROME - Underwater thieves have evaded an array of laser systems that measure millimetric shifts in the Costa Concordia shipwreck and 24-hour surveillance by the Italian coast guard and police to haul off a symbolic booty - the ship's bell. "

Judicial sources said on Thursday thieves nabbed the ship's bell more than two weeks ago from one of the decks of the Costa Concordia, which is submerged in 8 meters (26 feet) of water.

Investigators suspect more than one person was involved in stealing the heavy bell, etched with the ship's name and 2006, the year it was christened. Ships bells were traditionally used to signal half-hour intervals in a four-hour watch.

I can only guess that someone took it as a sort of morbid memento," Giglio's mayor, Sergio Ortelli, told Reuters.

"In my mind, the missing bell is of no importance. We have the ship's statue of the Madonna in our church, and that for us has much more symbolic meaning."

Divers recovered the meter-tall plaster statue of the Madonna in January from the ship's chapel and gave the statute to the parish priest of Giglio."

London, Mar 16 (ANI): The overall cost of refloating Costa Concordia, the luxury cruise ship that ran aground off the Italian coast in January this year, would be 'far beyond' 100 million Euros, a dredging and maritime services company bidding for the task has said.

Peter Berdowski, the chief executive of Royal Boskalis Westminster, said recovering the capsized ship was "an operation without precedent".

"You're not talking about an operation of a few dozen millions but something that goes far beyond 100 million Euros," The Telegraph quoted Berdowski, as saying.

"This is an operation without precedent. You have to imagine a big fat whale the size of a block of flats lying on its side, accidentally supported by two rocks," he added.

Looking for a relaxing read en route to your cruise? Then don't buy Fatal Voyage, The Wrecking of the Costa Concordia, a Kindle Singles e-book that takes an in-depth look at the modern day Titanic.

Written by journalist John Hooper, the e-book covers the worst passenger ship disaster since the Titanic in engaging detail. Numerous interviews with survivors describe plates falling as the ship's two-story dining room listed, the dark passageways where passengers crawled to reach an outside deck, the confusion around the lifeboats as the crew, acting without clear orders from above, tried to maintain control.

Hooper's experience as a Rome-based reporter for the U.K.'s Guardian newspaper stands him in good stead. The book contains details about the sinking that never made the U.S. coverage, including the Italians' collective embarrassment around one of their own, Costa Concordia Captain Francesco Schettino."

"Two months after the wreck of the Costa Concordia cruiseliner in the Mediterranean, Italian authorities say they will use “sophisticated robot-like equipment” to aid in the search for the final seven bodies still believed to be aboard, according to The Associated Press."

"MIAMI (CN) - Passengers on the doomed Costa Concordia cruise ship, which crashed and sank off Italy, paint a picture of chaos, panic and deceit, in a complaint against Carnival Corporation, in Miami-Dade County Court.

Hector Perez and eight other plaintiffs say the captain, who abandoned ship, waited almost an hour and a half after he knew the ship would sink before giving the order to evacuate.

"The stories told by passengers who survived the ordeal were ones of chaos, lies, and abandonment - Concordia's crew ignored her passengers, leaving only 'chefs and waiters' to help them survive - passengers were forced to jump into the freezing waters in an attempt to swim for shore," the complaint states."

"Within fifteen minutes of the collision, Concordia's engine room informed the captain that the hull was irreparably breached, that that generators and engines were submerged, and that 'there was nothing to be done' - the captain knew Concordia would sink," the complaint states.

"Soon thereafter, the onboard lights began to flicker, Concordia began to list, and passengers began to panic. "The passengers, however, were not told of the collision nor that Concordia was sinking. Despite a coded alarm to the crew indicating a breached hull, passengers were told: 'Please stay calm, everything is under control, it's just a minor technical fault.' "Fending for themselves, passengers began to call the Italian police onshore, who forwarded their pleas to the Italian coast guard. In response, the Italian coast guard contacted Concordia for a report on the situation, but was not told of the collision nor the gash in her hull. "Around 10:05 p.m., Concordia's Captain told the coast guard that: 'It's all OK, it's just a blackout, we're taking care of the situation.'" The plaintiffs say passengers put on life vests and waited by lifeboats, as the ship began to list almost immediately after the crash. "Finally, around 10:50 p.m., again under pressure from the Italian coast guard, Concordia's Captain ordered the ship to be abandoned," the complaint states."

"The stories told by passengers who survived the ordeal were ones of chaos, lies, and abandonment - Concordia's crew ignored her passengers, leaving only 'chefs and waiters' to help them survive - passengers were forced to jump into the freezing waters in an attempt to swim for shore.

"The events onboard the Concordia could not occur in the absence of negligence or reckless disregard of human life. Every passenger on board could have been saved had they been instructed to abandon ship immediately after the collision or had the passengers been allowed to follow their own instincts and board the lifeboats. Instead, the crew turned them away-a death sentence for some." The plaintiffs add: "Around 12:50 a.m., after a now infamous exchange in which the Italian coast guard chastised Concordia's captain and crew for their recklessness and cowardice in the face of the emergency, the Coast Guard took control of the operation." Twenty-five people died; seven are missing and presumed dead. The plaintiffs seek "all available damages" for negligence, negligent retention and negligent training."

Senior cruise shipping executives have predicted that the sector will bounce back quickly from January’s Costa Concordia accident with robust growth this year and next bolstered by growing emerging market demand and the launch of new ships."

Royal Caribbean said last month that bookings “were experiencing a slow improvement as media coverage of the Costa Concordia shipwreck subsided.”

In turn, Canada.com also reported March 9 "that in Germany, the world’s No.3 cruise market in terms of passenger numbers behind the United States and Britain, bookings showed holidaymakers were still nervous,

Title: Defueling to be completed on Friday 23 March
Post by: Host Mike on March 22, 2012, 08:29:37 PM

"Costa Crociere, the Municipality of Giglio Island and the Costa Concordia Emergency Commissioner’s Office have announced that the operations to remove the fuel from the Costa Concordia are due to be completed on Friday 23 March.

Defueling, which was carried out by experts from the Neri/Smit Salvage team hired by Costa Crociere, began at 5pm on 12 February and continued around the clock whenever the sea and weather conditions were favorable.

The removal of the oil from 17 tanks of the ship is expected to be completed during the night of Friday 23 March."

Title: Possible title of Schettino's new book "It was really fun while it lasted"
Post by: Host Mike on March 22, 2012, 08:39:12 PM

"Costa Concordia Captain Francesco Schettino is planning a book in which he will tell his version of the events that lead to the wreck of his cruise ship, an Italian newspaper reported on Wednesday.

Schettino, who is under house arrest near Naples, has clinched a deal for the book with a US publisher, Turin daily La Stampa said without naming the publisher.

Schettino faces charges of manslaughter, causing a shipwreck and abandoning the Costa Concordia before all of its around 4200 passengers and crew had been evacuated after it ran aground.

Thirty-two people are believed to have died in the January 13 accident which took place near the Giglio island off Italy's western coast.

In the book, Schettino, 52, will also unveil details of his relations with other crew members and a 25-year-old Moldovan dancer with whom he allegedly dined shortly before the accident, La Stampa said."

"The next step for Smit Salvage, along with another company, Tito Nero, is to clear debris from the ocean floor around the Costa Concordia. There will be ships involved with equipment to purify the water around the liner. After that is done, work will begin on removing the ship itself.It's not yet known who will be hired to achieve the removal, a job expected to take up to one year. Smit Salvage, with its parent company, Royal Boskalis Westminster, are one of six companies to submit a proposal. Their proposal is to refloat the ship, something they've successfully achieved in the past, while other proposals would see the Costa Concordia broken up and removed piecemeal.There were over 4200 passengers and crew on the cruise ship and it is believed 32 died. Earlier this week 5 more bodies were found, all outside the ship trapped between the hull and the seabed, bringing the total number of bodies recovered to 30."

"A Carnival Corp. (CCL) cruise ship was ordered held in a Texas port by a U.S. judge in a $10 million lawsuit filed by the family of a German tourist who died aboard the Costa Concordia shipwreck off the Italian coast.

An arrest warrant was issued yesterday for the MS Carnival Triumph, a 2,758-passenger cruise liner based in Galveston, Texas, that is owned by the same company that owns the Costa Concordia, according to the lawsuit also filed yesterday in federal court in Galveston by the family of Siglinde Stumpf. The Triumph provides year-round service from the Houston area to multiple ports in the Caribbean and Mexico, according to Carnival’s website.

“The court finds that the conditions for an attachment of defendants’ joint and collective property within this district, mainly the MS Carnival Triumph, appear to exist upon an admiralty and maritime claim,” U.S. Magistrate Judge John Froeschner of Galveston said in the warrant.

The Carnival Triumph will be allowed to unload passengers and cargo and move between berths within the port until a “prompt hearing” can be scheduled, at which “the plaintiff shall be required to show why the attachment and garnishment should not be vacated,” according to the order. "

"GALVESTON — Officials with Florida-based Carnival Cruise Lines are meeting with attorneys this morning and scrambling to ensure that the 2,758-passenger vessel Carnival Triumph can sail from Galveston as planned today.

Meanwhile, Port Director Mike Mierzwa recommends that passengers continue on with plans to sail today in the event Carnival can resolve legal issues."

"I believe the captain’s version of events is pretty clear for all to see: it is lying, half-submerged, on a rocky ledge just outside Giglio harbor. It is awaiting salvage. The bodies of several people remain trapped under its hull, and several more remain among the missing and presumed dead.

Meanwhile, Schettino is under house arrest in his home near Naples, where he must be backpedaling rapidly to explain to his wife why on the night of the crash he (allegedly) was dining on the bridge of the Concordia with a young, blonde dancer whose luggage was, reportedly, recovered after the crash from the captain’s own cabin. Hmmm.

It would be difficult for even a gullible wife to believe in the innocence of Schettino after the dancer was interviewed by the media and said the captain was a “hero” whom she “loved.” Can this marriage be saved? Can this captain be saved? Should they?

What cannot be saved are the lives of the passengers who trusted Schettino with their safety. And now he is writing a book – reportedly to be printed by an American publisher who remains unnamed – to explain his side of the tragedy. Presumably the captain will profit from his writing, since there is so much interest internationally in cruise ships in general and in this particular maritime disaster."

"The cruise industry remains incredibly safe and maintains one of the best safety records of any form of recreational travel in the world. The safety and security of our guests and crew is job number 1, and we will learn everything we can from this accident and apply all lessons learned. At this time, to honor those who were lost in the Costa Concordia, I ask you to join me in a moment of silence. Thank you.

I'd also like to thank Pier Foschi and the management team for the amazing efforts that they've had to undertake these past few months. Pier, thank you."

Title: Heils are now safely in the hands of God
Post by: Host Mike on April 17, 2012, 04:10:05 PM

"The two U.S. victims — the only Americans who died in the accident — were identified as Barbara and Gerald Heil of White Bear Lake, Minnesota.

In the Heils' hometown, friends expressed relief to hear that the bodies of the couple have been identified. The couple were well known as active members of the local church.

Gerald Heil would visit local woman Diane Vorland, confined to a wheelchair, every Thursday to bring communion and pray. And he drove a local man, Denny Hardy, on errands after the man lost his driver's license.

Vorland said Tuesday that it's good news the Heils have been identified after so long, and that the news should give closure to the family.

Hardy said it's nice knowing that the Heils are now safely in the hands of God."

Title: Ship to be moved away from the island of Giglio next month
Post by: Host Mike on April 17, 2012, 04:11:52 PM

"GIGLIO, Italy (Reuters) - The salvage operation to move the capsized Costa Concordia away from the island of Giglio, where it ran aground three months ago, will begin next month, an official said on Thursday."

Title: To be repaired, righted and towed to Genoa for scrap
Post by: Host Mike on April 18, 2012, 09:04:02 AM

"It was previously announced that the ship would be repaired, righted, and towed to Genoa where it will be cut up for scrap. This process was chosen over cutting the ship into salvage on site, primarily because the wreck lies in a marine biological protection area and it was feared further damage could be done to wildlife and coral reefs."

"Fears of a second maritime disaster came back to haunt the island exactly 90 days since the tragedy when a Russian merchant ship got into trouble just 300 yards off the island on Friday – also the 13th.

The vessel was carrying grain to Sardinia when it hit rough weather off Giglio and had to halt its course.

There were fears that high winds and stormy seas could push it onto the island's rocky shore, but after a few hours the danger passed and the ship was able to continue on its way to the port of Oristano.

Title: Foschi is retiring as Costa CEO on July 1 but Arison keeps him on Carnival Board
Post by: Host Mike on April 24, 2012, 05:27:05 AM

"The chief executive officer of Carnival Corp.’s subsidiary Costa Crociere, Pier Luigi Foschi, is retiring July 1. Carnival, headquartered in Miami, is also the parent company of Santa Clarita-based Princess Cruises.

Foschi, 65, will remain as chairman and a managing director of the Costa group and remain on the board of directors of Carnival Corporation & plc.

Michael Thamm, currently serving as president of Germany-based AIDA Cruises, has been appointed CEO of the Costa group.

He will report to Costa’s board of directors, which includes Micky Arison and Howard Frank, Carnival Corp. & plc’s chairman and CEO, and vice chairman and chief operating officer, respectively.

Carnival said the moves are part of a long-term succession plan that included the scheduled retirement of Foschi once he reached the age of 65."

http://www.the-signal.com/section/24/article/64191/

Title: Structural integrity is the key to the success of the salvage operation
Post by: Host Mike on April 24, 2012, 05:31:59 AM

"The plan to upright the capsized craft; then slowly tow it to a port near Rome could take more than a year to complete," says Farrell. "Because of the magnitude of this project, unlike other salvage operations – and because the cruise ship is so close to land, – the Costa Concordia requires special attention to the environmental concerns and to limiting disruption to the community, which relies almost entirely on tourism for its economic livelihood."

Farrell explains, "The salvage team has to be extremely careful not to cause adverse effects to the environment." He says, "Rolling and then refloating the ship in one piece rather than dismantling it piece-by-piece will be quite a feat. The main concern will be to not further compromise the ship's structural integrity, so that it can be maneuvered off the coast and to another port."

Title: Russel Rebello from India is still missing. Search has been abandoned.
Post by: Host Mike on April 24, 2012, 05:38:58 AM

"Kevin suspects that Russel might have attempted to save the woman and something happened thereafter. "I have the entire sequence of events from 8.45 pm to 12.15 am, narrated to me by survivors on-board that fateful night, when Russel was last spotted. But I am unable to get any details between 12.15 am to 12.30 am, when the ship actually started sinking and even Russel went missing soon after," he said.

Kevin added, "I had to cancel my plans to return to India twice earlier, as the search operators would find some bodies at those very moments. This time, I had hoped they would either identify the body through DNA, or would succeed in tracing the two missing people. But is was all in vain and I flew to India empty-handed."

Title: “Not even Coca-Cola could have afforded such worldwide publicity.”
Post by: Host Mike on April 24, 2012, 05:56:24 AM

"Tourists have expressed concerns over pollution from the wreck and a fear of running into emergency personnel. These fears exist in spite of the fact that salvage experts pumped out the cruise ship’s fuel after the crash, minimizing the risk of environmental damage.

That said, while overnight bookings are down, Giglio is quickly finding itself as a hot spot for day-trippers. These vacationers come to take pictures of the wreck and generally take in the spectacle of large-scale human catastrophe.

So far, journalists and rescue workers have had a bigger impact on the local economy than rubber necking tourists, but some on the island are optimistic. The president of the local tourism bureau, for example, told the Times that, “not even Coca-Cola (KO) could have afforded such worldwide publicity.”

The story is damning in its details of Schettino’s actions, many reported for the first time. They include:

One passenger’s claim, though it is elsewhere unconfirmed, that he saw the captain and a friend “polish off a decanter of red wine while eating” prior to the catastrophe.

That the captain was going too fast for the conditions and seemed to be navigating by eyesight rather than with the aid of maps and radar, when he saw a set of rocks off the Tuscan coast prior to the crash. “What he failed to notice was another rock, nearer to the ship,” that was largely underwater, the story says. “An officer later told investigators he heard the captain say, ‘(expletive)…I didn’t see it!’ ”

The captain, who was casually talking on the phone when the ship approached the rocks, wrongly ordered the ship to turn to starboard, rather than port, to avoid the mostly submerged rock when he finally did see it. That caused the ship’s stern to swing around and slam into it, ripping open a 230-foot-long gash below the waterline.

When crew members spoke with the Coast Guard, Schettino ordered them to say that there was only a blackout on board and they did not need any immediate assistance. Schettino’s apparent refusal to “promptly admit the Concordia’s plight — to lie about it, according to the Italian Coast Guard — was not only a violation of Italian maritime law but cost precious time, delaying the arrival of rescue workers by as much as 45 minutes,” the story says.

When the ship began listing to starboard, the captain dropped its massive anchors to prevent it from tipping further, but played out too much line — so the anchors never caught and were of no help. It was a “jaw-droppingly stupid mistake,” according to a veteran American captain and nautical analyst, John Konrad, quoted in the story.

The captain, who made it ashore in a lifeboat he claims to have fallen into, begged in a phone call with a Coast Guard officer not to be sent back to the ship to look for survivors. That shocked the officer, who in return threatened Schettino by saying, “Tell me how many people are still on board and what they need. Is that clear? ... I’m going to make sure you get in trouble. I’m going to make you pay for this.”

"Addressing a press conference on board the 130,000-tonne cruise ship Costa Magica, which spent the morning in Grand Harbour yesterday, Dario Rustico, sales and marketing director for Central Europe, Africa, Middle East and India, spoke about Costa being Italy’s largest tourism group, Europe’s largest cruise company, and part of Carnival Corporation & plc.

“Despite having extending our discounts, we are a financially sound company and we have all the means to recover, while ensuring that all the people involved in the Concordia tragedy are compensated fairly.”

http://www.independent.com.mt/news.asp?newsitemid=143012

Title: Some settlements of damages have been made by Costa
Post by: Host Mike on May 15, 2012, 05:41:50 PM

"Finally, it was reported that French survivors of the Costa Concordia disaster received a settlement from Costa Cruises. It was reported that the owner of the Costa Concordia has paid more than 2 million Euros to the French survivors in a settlement that was reached, as announced by their lawyer. The amount reported is the equivalent of $11,700.00 U.S. dollars each to 235 survivors. As we reported, 32 people are reported to have been killed when the Costa Concordia capsized on January 13, 2012. The recent settlement agreed to by the 235 remaining French survivors was paid on May 4th according to reports. In the meantime, the criminal prosecution in Italy is still going forward, and includes the captain and three executives."

The conference approved the main guidelines for the removal and retrieval of the ship, proposed by the shipowners, which envisage the floating of the entire ship. The several administrative agencies that took part - Giglio Island municipality, Province of Grosseto, Tuscany's regional government, ARPAT, ministries of the interior, of the environment, of infrastructure and transport, of health care, of cultural heritage, and the Customs Agency - all drafted the conditions that Micoperi and Titan Salvage, the salvage companies, must comply with during the works, as well as a series of recommendations to help preserve the environment, health and the historical heritage. . .

Title: Costa to now allow bridge officers to give their opinions to the Captain
Post by: Host Mike on May 15, 2012, 05:52:47 PM

"Costa has promised to introduce a real-time route-monitoring system, which will be later adopted by parent group Carnival Corporation & Plc (CCL.L), and a system to increase sharing of the ship's navigation plan between the captain and the officers.

"We do not want to radically change the responsibilities of the captain but simply allow other officers to give opinions," Foschi said.

Some of the Concordia officers have said they raised the alarm day but that Schettino dismissed the scale of the danger."

Salvage work to remove the capsized Costa Concordia cruise ship from its rocky perch off Tuscany, where 32 people died, will begin early next month and is expected to take a year, the Italian owner announced Saturday.

http://www.businessweek.com/ap/2012-04/D9U9C6200.htm

Title: RINA attested to the seaworthiness of the ship and safety readiness of the crew
Post by: Host Mike on May 15, 2012, 06:08:40 PM

Still, just how Registro Italiano Navale (RINA), an Italian classification society, evaluated the Concordia’s safety readiness is likely to come under serious scrutiny during the investigation. RINA issued certificates attesting to the seaworthiness of the Concordia and the safety readiness of its crew just three months before the accident. Its longtime president resigned days after the collision. “I think as things unfold you are going to find an extremely cozy relationship between shipowners and the classification society,” says Doherty.

Title: Crew members were running around panicked, frustrated, and clueless
Post by: Host Mike on May 15, 2012, 06:13:02 PM

"Divya and Sameer Sharma, two American survivors who testified before Mica’s committee, recalled that in order to get into a lifeboat, they had had to join a mob of passengers and force their way past reticent crew members who were still urging them to return to their cabins. “The crew members were running around panicked, frustrated, and clueless,” said Sameer. “No one seemed to have any clear idea as to what they had to do in this situation or where they were supposed to send us.”

Although the Sharmas’ description of events is consistent with that of other survivors, Mark Conroy, president of Regent Seven Seas Cruises, notes, “It does appear that at least a portion of the Concordia crew actually did their job, because they were able to rescue more than 4,100 people and all but two of the lifeboats were launched. Those things don’t happen by themselves.

Under SOLAS, crew are required to demonstrate that they can get all of the lifeboats into the water within 30 minutes of the shipmaster’s announcement of an evacuation, but full-scale drills, in which ships like the Concordia or the Allure are fully loaded with passengers and then evacuated in lifeboats, are simply not feasible, says CLIA’s Michael Crye, executive vice president for regulatory and technical issues. “There is a certain amount of risk of injury to passengers if you have a full-scale ship evacuation,” he says. Computer modeling used to demonstrate safe evacuation plans, meanwhile, usually does not account for factors like heavy ocean swells, cold water, loss of power, the darkness of night—or a situation in which the ship is listing or flooded. “I don’t think regulations have kept up with the increase in capacity,” says Antonio Simoes Re, who heads a research group focused on marine evacuations and rescue at Canada’s National Research Council.

Salvage work to remove the capsized Costa Concordia cruise ship from its rocky perch off Tuscany, where 32 people died, will begin early next month and is expected to take a year, the Italian owner announced Saturday.

http://www.businessweek.com/ap/2012-04/D9U9C6200.htm

I haven't keep up with the reports about the salvage work but have you read what they intend to do with the ship if it's to be salvaged in 1 piece? Are they going to try & reuse it as a cruise ship once again? I really have my doubts if people would want to book trips on a ship with that reputation even if they could rebuilt it.

The article mentioned"People emerged from their staterooms wearing pajamas and life vests. Crowds formed and confusion reigned; few knew the location of their ­lifeboat stations. That information would have been part of their muster drill, required by law to be performed within 24 hours of boarding. But the ship was in the first hours of its cruise, so the 696 passengers who boarded that day had no idea where to go."

Good point RichC. But I wonder in which language was the muster point information on cabin door? A lot of diferent nationalities were on board Costa Concordia that night. :o

Title: The vessel is expected to be stabilized by the end of August
Post by: Host Mike on June 20, 2012, 01:12:42 PM

"The vessel is expected to be stabilized by the end of August to prevent it shifting down the rocky ledge it is resting on and plunging into the deep waters of the surrounding marine reserve.

Two cranes attached to an underwater platform beside the 114,500 metric ton (126,215 ton) ship will then pull it upright, helped by the weight of big water-filled tanks that will be fitted on the part of the ship above water.

Once upright, more tanks will be fitted to the other side of the hull. They will then be emptied and filled with air to refloat the huge liner, which will be towed to an Italian port and broken up."

Title: The preliminary work has begun before the ship is stabilized
Post by: Host Mike on June 25, 2012, 06:33:48 PM

"Things began moving apace this week off the coast of Giglio, Italy in the Tuscan Bay as companies working on the Costa Concordia began removing items from the deck. The ship capsized into the water on Jan. 13 and has been half-submerged there since.

Among other items, salvage workers this week removed much of the mast, the giant 'C' for the name of the ship, the slide for the swimming pool and parts of the radar equipment. The work, being done jointly by the American firm, Titan Salvage and the Italian firm, Micoperi, is necessary now so vessels needed to work close to that area of the boat can do so.

“The preliminary work has begun before the ship is stabilized, which will happen in the next few months,” Sergio Ortelli, mayor of Giglio, told media on Wednesday. The operation will see the ship refloated, towed away and then scrapped at an as yet undetermined port; it's expected to cost $300 million."

http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/327218

Title: Costa Concordia rock which ripped hole in liner to be made into a memorial
Post by: Host Mike on June 25, 2012, 06:39:45 PM

"A massive chunk of rock which ripped a hole in the side of the Costa Concordia cruise ship, causing it to capsize six months ago, is to be removed and made into a permanent memorial to the victims of the disaster."

Title: In every disaster there is opportunity
Post by: Host Mike on June 25, 2012, 06:43:50 PM

"Ms Lang Schildberger, who has the regal manner of an upper-class Austrian but speaks with the accent and frankness of someone who grew up in Sydney, says of the islanders: "Oh, this lot have never had it so good. The hotels and ferries have never been this full in Giglio.

"They were booked up all of January and February. I don't think they've ever served so many pizzas."

She noted, too that pollution fears have proved unfounded. "The sea is cleaner that it's ever been," she said. Schools of small fish that swim up to the dock-front in turquoise water just yards from the pastel-colour shops, bars and apartments, seem to bear this out."

"Here are the dates and jobs expected to be done by them: site inspection is ongoing through July 31; "securing and stabilizing" the ship until August 31; installing and stabilizing of caissons (watertight chambers) and building marine platforms by Nov. 15; installing what De Musso called 'boxes' on the right side of the ship by Dec. 1; up-righting the ship by Jan. 15 and towing it to an Italian port by Jan. 31.

There will be work on the flora and sea-bed, cleaning and replanting, that is expected to take, De Musso's email said, up to the end of April. Titan Salvage of America and Microperi of Italy are the two principal companies undertaking the boat refloat and are part of the clean-up."

"Costa pricing up slightly sequentially and has now recovered a cumulative 3% (over last 10 weeks) of ~8% drop that the brand saw in late March/early April, which seems an encouraging indication that incoming booking volumes have been satisfactory.

This is also surprising given the debt crisis and deteriorating economic situation in southern Europe."

http://www.businessinsider.com/costa-cruise-prices-2012-6

Title: The Unsinking of the Costa Concordia - Coming to a theater near you
Post by: Host Mike on June 25, 2012, 06:53:38 PM

"A Dutch movie company has begun filming the events taking place at the site of the sunken Italian liner, the Costa Concordia. The goal is to produce a time-lapse movie of the refloating and towing-away of the ill-fated cruise ship.Bo de Visser of Prorama Films, has told Digital Journal in an email interview that he has twice gone to the ship, which went down off the shore of the island of Giglio on Jan. 13. The time-lapse filmmaker said the "main challenge lies within being able to contact the right people in Italy" while 1600km (1100 miles) away in the Netherlands. His first visit was to get permits and take care of electricity needs and other technical requirements, his second saw him begin the filming."

http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/326231

Title: Captain is now free to move about the town
Post by: Host Mike on July 06, 2012, 10:43:41 AM

"Magistrates in the Tuscan town of Grosseto who are handling the case said Schettino would no longer have to remain confined to his home in Meta di Sorrento near Naples but would have to remain in the town.

He would also no longer be bound by the strict conditions of house arrest which prevented him from communicating with anyone apart from his lawyer and close family."

"Capt Francesco Schettino's extraordinary claim came as Italian judges released him from house arrest but said he must remain in his hometown of Meta di Sorrento, south of Naples, as he waits to go on trial on charges of manslaughter and abandoning ship.

He has been accused of gross negligence by sailing the 1,000ft luxury liner into a rocky reef off the Tuscan island of Giglio, ripping a massive gash in its hull.

But he claimed that rather than being responsible for the 32 dead, he had saved lives with his nautical skills and quick-thinking.

"If I had continued on that path the ship's prow would have hit the rock. It would have been carnage," he wrote in a letter to his lawyers.

"A divine hand surely touched my head. There are those who say the impact with the stern was caused because I was suffering from a hallucination.

What hallucination! It was rather my instinct, my skills, the ability to know the sea and suddenly change direction," he said.

To his critics, the extraordinary justification may fall into the same category as his now infamous claim that he did not deliberately flee the sinking ship, but "tripped and fell" into a lifeboat.

The lifeboat took him to the safety of shore even as hundreds of panic-stricken passengers and crew were trying to flee the listing ship in the darkness, inching their way down rope ladders and clambering into wobbling lifeboats.

"I created the most optimal conditions to save everybody, independently of how events were unfolding," he wrote.

It was "pure luck" that he had seen the white wash of breaking waves on the left side of the ship as it hit the rock, and had managed to immediately steer the vessel to the right "out of sheer instinct".

He defended himself from accusations that he delayed giving the order to abandon the ship for far too long.

"A ship is in fact the best lifeboat that exists. The captain needs to take his time to evaluate the emergency without creating panic. It is he alone who is responsible – first before God, and then before men." Francesco Verusio, the chief prosecutor in the case, said: "Schettino is playing his game, but it will be the judge to decide how things went that night."

"In an interview this week, Captain Francesco Schettino admitted to being distracted on the phone when he navigated the ship off course, hitting the rocks near the Italian island of Giglio. Schettino could face manslaughter charges and was recently released from house arrest."

Title: "Crew members didn't know how to navigate the boats"
Post by: Host Mike on July 18, 2012, 08:48:03 AM

"No alarm was sounded until more than an hour after they felt the ship shudder."

"When they heard six short whistles and a seventh long one, the signal to abandon ship and board life boats, the Lofaros said that it seemed the crew members didn’t know how to navigate the boats. They described the life boats bumping into one another like “bumper cars.”

"The Aho family is being represented by Eaves and is battling Costa Cruises and Carnival.

“Some people just don’t want to have anything more to do with it and I completely understand that. All the trauma, you just want to get past it and continue on,” Fleser said. “We on the other hand, think that it’s important to try to change something.”

The family’s attorney recently took his fight to the seas. Eaves got the federal court in Texas to send U.S. Marshals to seize the Carnival Triumph which was about to sail from the port of Galveston. The federal court accepted a suit on behalf of the family of a woman killed on the Concordia, thus compelling Carnival to post a $10 million bond before the Triumph could sail.

“We asked the court to seize Carnival Triumph, a large passenger ship, and hold that ship as collateral for the judgment. Just much like you do with a criminal, you know, you capture him. Then he has to post a bond for him to go free, to make sure he'll return to court. We did the same thing with the ship,” Eaves said. “They had to post a bond to make sure that, out of that bond, when we get a verdict, we get a judgment, that they'll pay this family and help them rebuild their lives.”

Of his fight against the cruise line industry, Eaves said, “Oh, it's Goliath, it's Goliath times two…I'm throwing my little slingshot, and I got one or two pebbles that I can throw. I've done thrown a couple of them and I'm going to keep throwing until we find some way to make this better.”

"Schettino also has been criticized for delaying the evacuation and not immediately conveying the seriousness of the situation. He did not sound the abandon ship alarm for nearly an hour after hitting the rocks and initially told authorities he thought the problem was just a power outage.

“My problem was to control the panic,’’ he said. “First of all, we were not really aware of the extent of the damage after hitting the rocks.’’

He also denied that he abandoned ship, saying the tilting of the vessel threw him into a lifeboat while he was helping people. Schettino added that he tried to persuade another boat to bring him back."

"But it’s Schettino’s actions after the collision that will be dissected in court. As the ship was sinking, the captain called his superiors in Genoa, Italy, more than a dozen times and asked for helicopters and a barge—all while lying to the Italian Coast Guard about the gravity of the incident. “It’s only a blackout” Schettino told the Coast Guard commander in a conversation that was taped and later broadcast. Meantime, worried passengers were flooding the emergency landlines, reporting that the ship was dark and listing; one passenger described how water was pouring down the stairs that led to the lower staterooms. The captain lost a valuable hour before finally pulling the “abandon ship” alarm. Meanwhile, his 1,000-strong crew was having to take charge with no authority to evacuate and little training. “The crew was given mixed messages. They knew the ship was sinking, but their captain had ultimate authority so they were caught,” says Franco Gabrielli, Italy’s civil-protection chief."

Title: There was "a breakdown in the interaction between human beings" says Captain
Post by: Host Mike on July 18, 2012, 10:41:15 AM

"Justifying his actions the other day, the captain of the Costa Concordia came up with a euphemism that is deserving of canonical status, by which I mean, it’s a belter. He said there had been “a breakdown in the interaction between human beings”.

"Evidence gathered from the black box data recorder of the Costa Concordia appears to contradict his insistence that he was not in charge of the ship when it smashed into the rocky outcrop off the Tuscan island of Giglio.

In his first media interview since the disaster, Francesco Schettino insisted on Tuesday that he was not in command of the cruise ship when it careered into the reef on Jan 13, tearing a huge gash in its hull and leading to the deaths of 32 people, including a five year old girl.

He had dinner with friends, including an ex-dancer from Moldova, then went up onto the bridge, he said.

But he maintained that he did not immediately take charge, telling an Italian television channel that at the time of the collision the 1,000ft ship was being steered by another officer.

“I went up to the bridge. I ordered the navigation to be manual, and I didn’t have the command. The navigation was being directed by another officer,” Mr Schettino said.

But data recovered from the black box by forensic investigators showed that the captain disabled the automatic pilot and took control of the ship at 9.39pm that night – six minutes before the collision at 9.45pm.

He allegedly veered off the ship’s previously agreed route, steering the Concordia perilously close to Giglio so that he could perform a “salute” or sail-past for the benefit of a former colleague, a retired sea captain who lived on the island.

Audio recordings from the black box, leaked to Corriere della Sera on Wednesday, revealed the panic and drama on the bridge as officers realised that the giant ship was ramming into the rocky reef, a few yards off Giglio’s coast.

“Our a— is dragging along the seabed!” an unidentified officer yelled. He then swore and gave the order for watertight doors in the stern to be immediately closed.

A few moments later Mr Schettino asked: “What did we hit?” to which an unidentified officer replied: “The reef.”

Another officer said: “It was the salute that he wanted,” an apparent reference to the sail-past that the captain had agreed to perform.

At 9.56pm Mr Schettino telephoned Roberto Ferrarini, an officer who was on duty in the emergency unit of Costa Cruises, the Genoa-based company that owns the Concordia.

Title: Schettino says he was distracted by a telephone call just before the crash
Post by: Host Mike on July 22, 2012, 09:12:58 PM

GROSSETO, Italy — An Italian court on Saturday postponed until Oct. 15 a preliminary hearing seeking to determine charges against those responsible for the Costa Concordia shipwreck that killed 32 crew and passengers.

The court decided to delay the hearing, which will decide whether to indict Concordia's captain and others, in order to examine an expert assessment of audio evidence from the black box data recorder.

Capt. Francesco Schettino's lawyer told reporters outside the courthouse that the audio evidence from the black box confirms his client's version of events.

"Schettino has felt relieved since he had the chance to tell his version of the facts to the judge, but he is also relieved because the audio evidence from the black box confirm his version," Bruno Leporatti said.

Schettino said recently in a TV interview that he was distracted by a telephone call just before the Jan. 13 accident, and that he believed his decision to move the ship closer to shore to shallow waters instead of immediately ordering an evacuation potentially saved lives. Prosecutors allege he sailed too close to an island in a publicity stunt, ramming it into a reef.

Title: This will be the biggest wreck removal ever undertaken
Post by: Host Mike on July 22, 2012, 09:17:20 PM

“This will be the biggest wreck removal ever undertaken,” said Mark Hoddinott, general manager of the International Salvage Union. “Technically, it’s going to be very challenging.”

Preliminary steps started in June, and the rest of the delicate operation will unfold in stages until the ship is towed to an Italian port by the end of January -- if everything follows the schedule.

“The main enemy is winter weather and sea conditions,” said Pier Donato Vercellone, the project’s media consultant in a statement. “If sea conditions will not allow us to stabilize and upright the vessel according [to] schedule, the risk will increase.”

For now, workers from Pompano Beach-based Titan Salvage and Italian marine firm Micoperi are performing inspections that will wrap up by the end of the month. Exterior portions of the ship have been cut off, and the rock stuck in the ship’s port side is also being removed.

Before attempting to move the ship, the companies will attach heavy cables that are connected to poles in order to keep it from sliding, according to a plan that was released publicly in May.

Once the ship is stabilized, an undersea platform will be built and anchored to the sea floor. Watertight boxes that, like the platform and holdback system will be specially made for the operation, will be attached to the side of the Concordia that is out of the water. The installation of those platforms and boxes, called caissons, is scheduled to be finished by Nov. 15.

On December 1, one of the most sensitive steps of the process is scheduled to start. Two cranes that are fixed to the undersea platform will pull the ship to an upright position in one piece. The boxes on the ship’s side will be filled with water to help it roll.

Once the ship is up, a set of caissons will be attached to the other side as well. Both will be emptied of water and filled with air to help the vessel float again — which is expected to happen by Jan. 15.

If all goes as planned, Concordia will be delivered to an Italian port by Jan. 31. The ship has been declared a constructive total loss, which means the cost of repairing the Concordia would be greater than its value.

Once the ship is gone, the sea floor will be cleaned and flora will be replanted. Work should be fully finished by April 30.

Between 30-200 people will be working on the project at any given time, depending on the phase, Vercellone said."

Title: They purchased their cruises on Costa's U.S. website
Post by: Host Mike on July 22, 2012, 09:22:11 PM

"Costa had offered each Concordia passenger who returned home 11,000 euros or roughly $14,000 in compensation.

"That's a slap in the face. Shame on Costa," Miami attorney Gabrielle Lyn D'Alemberte, who represents the Warricks, said Wednesday.

D'Alemberte said Costa's offer, which the Warricks refused, would not have covered their out-of-pocket expenses, much less emotional damages.

The siblings "suffered and will continue to suffer severe discomfort, injuries and sickness, severe mental anguish, pain and loss of enjoyment of life," because of their ordeal, according to court papers.

D'Alemberte asserts the Warricks have a right to file a lawsuit here and not in Italy as the cruise ticket contract dictates, because they purchased their cruises on Costa's U.S. website.

It also would be prejudicial to take it to Italy as they'd be barred from litigation there since there's no contingency for personal injury in this case, she noted."

"The family of the Costa Concordia disaster's youngest victim has received a seven-figure payment from the liner's owner, Costa Cruises.

The compensation to relatives of five-year-old Dayana Arlotti, whose body was found inside the wrecked liner next to her dead father, Williams Arlotti, is the first big individual settlement to be confirmed.

Lawyer Torquato Tristani, representing the parents of Mr Arlotti and his partner, Michela Arlotti Maroncelli, said the agreement with Costa Cruises had been made quickly, adding: "I can say that the compensation was very satisfactory and fair to all parties."

Compensation for Dayana's mother, Susy Albertini, was confirmed by her lawyer, Davide Veschi. A confidentiality clause ensures that the amounts paid to the parties cannot be revealed, although reports indicated that it ran into seven figures."

"London: The disgraced captain of Costa Concordia, whose luxury-liner shipwreck killed 32 passengers in January this year, is said to be negotiating the price for his interviews with the media.

Captain Francesco Schettino, who is suspected of multiple manslaughter and abandoning ship ahead of his passengers, is negotiating two EUR 50,000 interviews, one with a TV channel and another with a news magazine.

Schettino's lawyer, Paul Bastianini, confirmed to La Stampa, that lucrative deals were currently being brokered on behalf of his client, The Independent reports.

Title: Lawyers say the ship was top-heavy and had a propensity to roll over
Post by: Host Mike on July 22, 2012, 09:47:32 PM

A US law firm said Tuesday it is suing Carnival, the American owner of the cruise liner shipwrecked off Italy this year, for allegedly leading its designers to sacrifice safety for profits.

The Eaves law firm said it was suing for punitive damages in California over the design of the doomed luxury Costa Concordia and hoped that a win would see all similarly designed cruise ships declared unseaworthy.

"This morning we filed a claim for punitive damages against Carnival and the architects who designed the Concordia, for purposefully ignoring safety to maximise profit," lawyer John Arthur Eaves told a Rome press conference.

Eaves, who said he is part of a collective of lawyers representing around 150 claimants from the liner, said the ship's design was fatally flawed "because it was top-heavy and had a propensity to roll".

"The sad tragedy is the race to build the biggest ship with the shallowest hulls and room for the most passengers. When will it stop? We decided we must file this complaint to stop a race which is destroying safety," he said.

The firm alleges Carnival "controlled or at least heavily influenced the design of the MV Costa Concordia to suit its commercial needs as opposed to best or even good marine practices."

It also brought legal proceedings against the architects, named simply as "John Does", for "designing the vessel to maximize passenger carrying capacity, but at the expense of seaworthiness, and passenger safety."

"The ship's shallow draught, the area below the waterline, made it unstable, so that it tilted quickly over and many lifeboats became useless," Eaves said.

"ROME — The Italian cruise ship which crashed in January killing 32 people was sailing with its sealed doors open, unapproved maps and faulty instruments, a newspaper reported on Tuesday citing investigators.

Some of the technical apparatus on board the Costa Concordia had been broken since January 9 -- four days before the tragedy off the Italian island of Giglio, Corriere della Sera said, citing leaked documents from the inquiry.

Ship owner Costa Crociere responded to the report saying that the ship's black box "had in fact only issued an error code, which in no way meant that the device was out of service, as is demonstrated by the fact that the data it contained were perfectly in line with engineers' expectations".

"There is no international regulation or convention that prohibits a ship from sailing in a similar situation," it said in a statement.

"The Vdr (Voyage Data Recorder) has broken down for the umpteenth time... The situation is becoming unbearable," Costa Crociere's technical director Pierfrancesco Ferro is quoted as telling a repair firm in an email.

An officer on board questioned by investigators also reportedly said watertight doors were open at the time of the impact as "this was a practice used during the navigation to ease the flow of people who were at work."

Costa Crociere, Europe's biggest cruise operator, said the doors were not open due to electric malfunctioning as asserted by Corriere della Sera.

It also said that the ship had "all the paper and electronic nautical charts needed to complete the voyage planned".

"It is the duty of the master (captain), based on the voyage plan he himself establishes, to verify that the ship is provided with any further nautical charts," it said.

"The ship should have never sailed so close to the coast," the company said."

"Bookings for Costa Cruises have rebounded significantly since the Costa Concordia accident earlier this year.

Costa's parent company Carnival Corp. said on Friday that booking volumes at Costa were up 25% compared with the same time one year ago."

"Carnival Corp. COO Howard Frank said during a conference call about Carnival Corp.'s second-quarter earnings that Costa had suffered a "significant loss" in bookings right after the accident.

The line introduced deep discounts to try and get some of that business back.

"The picture has improved" at Costa, Frank said. "Costa's booking volumes, stimulated by significant pricing initiatives as part of their re-marketing campaign introduced in April, have shown considerable strength."

"LONDON, July 25 (Reuters) - British insurer Lancashire said it expected to return cash to shareholders this year as it reported a 33 percent drop in its quarterly profit, blaming bigger payouts related to the Costa Concordia shipwreck and dwindling investment returns."

"The widening Costa Concordia loss was driven largely by a $20 million payout on an industry loss warranty, a reinsurance contract that entitles the buyer to a payout if total insured losses from a claims event exceed an agreed threshold.

The ILW was triggered when estimated overall losses from the Concordia disaster exceeded $1 billion, forcing Lancashire to pay an unnamed reinsurance counterparty $20 million, said Jonny Creagh-Cohen, Lancashire's head of investor relations."

Title: Giglio rescuers were amazing even they we couldn't speak their language
Post by: Host Mike on July 28, 2012, 02:02:19 PM

"Nearly six months later, Andrea and Laurence are returning to Giglio, inspired by the warmth and empathy of the islanders that rescued them that night.

The Calgary couple is leaving for Giglio on July 5th and returning to Calgary on July 23rd, after cruising from Amsterdam.

“None of us could speak a word of each other’s language, and they were just so unbelievably amazing to us.”

“They are what brought us home. They are our reason for survival,” Andrea told the Herald on Friday.

Andrea recalls that after they and other survivors swam frantically from the sinking ship and climbed to safety on a rock, locals were the first to show up and take them to a school on the island.

Her feet, stung by coral, were in searing pain, while the rest of her body shivered uncontrollably, her damp clothes “like ice packs” on her body, she recalled.

But within moments, she said the attentive islanders had bathed her feet and removed the coral, fed her and dressed her in clean, warm clothes.

“After a couple of hours, I just had this feeling of safety and survival come over me,” she recalled.

Andrea said she wanted to thank them, but in her exhausted state, the only Italian word she could remember was “vino.”

“So I stood up and I started clapping my hands, saying ‘Vino! Vino!’” she recalled with a laugh. “And honestly, within minutes, this man came in with this case of wine.”

It was 4 a.m., but the cruise ship passengers and their Italian rescuers sipped on the wine and relished their new friendship.

“There isn’t a word between us,” she described the scene. “We can’t communicate, but it’s a language of love.”

Andrea, who has struggled to put the traumatic incident behind her, still gets emotional when she recounts the events of that night.

“We keep on hearing the noise of the crash,” she said, her voice breaking as she paused to collect herself. “Hearing all the glass shattering and bodies flying and people falling like ten pins and people being thrust into walls and chandeliers falling.”

Andrea said she gets angry when she remembers the lack of instruction from the ship’s captain, and how long it took her and her husband to get to safety."

"The former skipper of the Costa Concordia sunned himself off the Amalfi Coast yesterday, far from the Italian courthouse where a judge was weighing whether to indict him for his role in the shipwreck that killed 32 crew members and passengers."

Source:: The Daily on the iPad

Title: Gladstone Gallery in New York will feature a Costa Concordia exhibit
Post by: Host Mike on August 02, 2012, 09:35:57 PM

At our 21st Street location Thomas Hirschhorn will create a large-scale installation inspired by the sinking of the cruise ship Costa Concordia, which ran aground off the coast of Italy in January 2012. The exhibition, “Concordia, Concordia” explores the conceit of the modern disaster, and turns the aphorism “too big to fail” on its head, exploring the notion that something that is too big is in fact destined to inevitable failure. The gallery space will be filled with a reconstruction of the sunken ship, with its displaced architecture, caught in a state of collapse. The exhibition will be on view from September 14 to October 20, 2012."

Title: No trial is expected before the beginning of 2013 at the earliest
Post by: Host Mike on August 16, 2012, 04:19:57 PM

"Locals say hotel bookings and vacation rentals are down on Giglio, in part because of Italy's economic crisis. But the picturesque island - so off-the-beaten-track that most guidebooks mention it in passing, if at all - is drawing a new breed of visitor.

Ticket touts in Santo Stefano, about 10 miles east of Giglio, sell sightseeing boat trips to the wreck for as little as $12 - and "there has been a rise in the number of tourists coming for the day, with curious people taking photos of the giant sprawled on the rocks," mayor Sergio Ortelli told AFP.

Meanwhile, investigators continue their probe on why the ship was sailing so close to the island at high speed, and why the evacuation was delayed for more than an hour after the crash. Captain Francesco Schettino is suspected of abandoning ship before the evacuation was completed.

Title: 'It's just a power cut'
Post by: Host Mike on September 07, 2012, 11:03:42 AM

"The disgraced captain of the Costa Concordia told his passengers that the doomed cruise ship had simply suffered a 'power cut' moments after it had hit a reef and begun to sink.

The disaster off the Italian Island of Giglio in January this year claimed the lives of 32 passengers including a five-year-old girl.

Recordings retrieved from the ship's 'black box' show how Captain Francesco Schettino deliberately misinformed both the passengers and the Italian coastguard to the true extent of the accident.

Seconds after the collision at 9.45pm he is heard saying: 'Madonna what have I done?'

He then calls down to the engine room and asks: 'Are we really going down?'

But three minutes later at 9.54, he instructs an officer on the bridge to tell passengers 'there has been a blackout'.

And at 10.02pm he calls the Italian coastguard saying: 'We've had a blackout, we're just evaluating... at most we're going to need a tugboat.'

He continued to resist calls from his officers to abandon the ship until 11.19pm.

Capt Schettino escaped the 1,000 ft liner before all the passengers had been evacuated and later told magistrates he had 'tripped' into a life boat.

As the evacuation of the 4,200 passengers and crew was under way, he telephoned his wife, Fabiola, to say everything was 'under control'.

'We hit a reef, the ship is listing but I performed a great manoeuvre ... everything is under control.'

But in a subsequent phone call he told her: 'My career as a captain is over.'

In his own account of the fateful night he claimed that his sailing know-how and 'intuition', abetted by divine intervention, had caused him to change course at the last moment - and prevent a much greater loss of life.

'At that moment a divine hand definitely landed on my head,' he said. 'If I had continued on that route, we would have hit the rock with the bow. It would have been a massacre.'

The black box recordings were obtained by the Italian La Stampa newspaper."

"According to press reports of the leaked investigation into the Costa Concordia tragedy, poor judgement, inadequate training, and language barriers were all apparently contributing factors. Of these, communication issues are in some sense the most problematic. This article highlights one approach to bridging language and cultural barriers on board."

"ROME — Court-appointed experts have squarely blamed the captain of a cruise ship that ran aground off Italy for the wreckage and deaths of 32 people, but they also faulted the crew and ship owner for a series of blunders, delays and safety breaches that contributed to the disaster."

"The analysis came out Wednesday and was placed online Thursday by the Rome daily La Repubblica.

The experts contrasted what went wrong on board with maritime rules and procedures and determined that Schettino should have given the "abandon ship" order at 10 p.m. that night, 15 minutes after the 9:45 p.m. grounding against the rocks off Giglio.

Instead, the evacuation order only went out at 10:43 p.m. – and Schettino himself didn't give it but another officer, in violation of maritime rules. By that time, passengers on their own had already reported to their muster stations with life jackets on, despite a decision from a crew member at one point that they should go back to the dining room.

"Madonna, what a mess I've made," Schettino muttered soon after the collision, according to the transcript.

Beyond Schettino's faults, the experts said a series of problems hobbled the execution of his initial maneuver and efforts to fix it, and contributed to the botched evacuation. Bridge crew members bungled directions and didn't his understand orders because of language barriers. Other crew members weren't trained or certified in security and emergency drills, the report found."

Title: Why salvage the wreckage? Just leave it where it is says Lori Nix.
Post by: Host Mike on September 24, 2012, 08:45:33 PM

"Lori Nix is a New York photographer who often works with "unnatural disasters" and is a part of the judging panel and offers up suggestions as to what the contest is looking for. "This ship could offer the same benefit to marine life in addition to providing a destination for adventurous divers," Nix writers on the ICSplat website. "Above the waterline, they could introduce indigenous plants and other native species of bird and small animal to create a new habitat."

"Other utterings the tapes reveal include his 9:56 call to the emergency center of Costa Crociere, the owner/operator of the ship, telling the crisis coordinator there, Roberto Ferrarini: "Roberto, I fucked up!" He also tells Ferrarini he passed "close by and I hit shallow water with the stern."

And at 11:08, 17 minutes after giving the order to abandon ship he called his wife Fabiola at their home in a small town near Naples. "Fabi', my career as a captain is over. We hit a reef, the ship is listing but I performed a great maneuver (and) everything is under control," he tells her. "Don't worry, let's forget all this sailing and we can start another job."

One wonders what Capitano Schettini's fate will be when this is all over. One would think he would be charged with Mansalughter if he has not been already. It will be then up to the Italian Justice system. I have not been following this issue very closely. All a bit drawn out. Ship still there, enquiry drags on etc. ::)

Costa has certainly 'shuffled the pack' with its replacement executives, no doubt all organised by 'Mother Carnival.' ???

One wonders what Capitano Schettini's fate will be when this is all over. One would think he would be charged with Mansalughter if he has not been already. It will be then up to the Italian Justice system. I have not been following this issue very closely. All a bit drawn out. Ship still there, enquiry drags on etc. ::)Costa has certainly 'shuffled the pack' with its replacement executives, no doubt all organised by 'Mother Carnival.' ???

He will never Captain a ship again. A Captain's first responsibility is to his passengers and/or cargo. That is what he gets paid for. Whether he will be criminally negligent will be up to the Italian courts, however his employers may feel some of that pain also because they are responsible for the manning of their ships. His leaving his ship before ensuring all his passengers were accounted for will weigh heavily against him. With the Italian Coast Guard as a witness to his actions he stands very little chance of overcoming any charges of guilt. >:(

"2:17PM EST October 1. 2012 - A judge in Florida has dismissed a lawsuit filed by Italian businesses against Miami-based Carnival Corp. over the fatal capsizing of a cruise ship off Italy's coast.

U.S. District Judge Robin Rosenbaum agreed with Carnival that the lawsuit should be filed in Italy, not the U.S. Up to 1,000 businesses on the island where the Costa Concordia ship ran aground had sought to sue Carnival in U.S. courts because it is Costa's parent company."

"A BEVERLEY company is part of team tasked with salvaging the Costa Concordia after securing the biggest contracts in its history.

"Dalby Offshore Limited has been awarded a multi-million contract to help salvage and raise the ill-fated vessel from the Island of Giglio, north of Rome in Italy.

The 114,500 tonne ship remains partially submerged 300m off the coast of Giglio after running aground on January 13.

Due to the scale of the high-profile disaster and the marine conditions surrounding the vessel, the salvage operation – which is estimated to be worth at least $500 million – has been described as one of the biggest and most complicated in marine history.

Dalby Offshore Limited has now been named as one of the companies that is part of an international team instructed with raising the vessel and returning it to shore."

Title: Seafarer of the Year award goes to crew
Post by: Host Mike on October 03, 2012, 09:51:04 AM

"The crew of the Costa Concordia, the huge cruise liner which capsized off the coast of Italy in January killing as many as 32 people, has won the Lloyd's List 'Seafarer of the Year' award.

The citation for the award said the crew provided "true examples of courage and professionalism" during the dangerous night evacuation of the ship after it was fatally holed by a rock off the Tuscan island of Giglio."

Title: European Citizen of the European Parliament Prize
Post by: Host Mike on October 03, 2012, 09:53:55 AM

"Bulgarian cruise ship technician Petar Petrov, who saved hundreds of people aboard Costa Concordia cruise liner, will be awarded Monday the European Citizen of the European Parliament Prize.

Petrov will receive the award by Bulgaria's EU Commissioner for International Cooperation, Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Response, Kristalina Georgieva, who will be the official guest of the event, held in the building of the Parliament in downtown Sofia."

"Bookings at Costa Cruises are bouncing back from the sharp drop seen in the months after the Costa Concordia accident, and the brand should be back to profitability by next year, according to executives at the line's parent company."

Title: Safety is our number one priority says CLIA president and CEO
Post by: Host Mike on October 03, 2012, 10:00:20 AM

"The cruise industry continues to work on a global level to improve the safety of passengers and crew, which is our number one priority," said Christine Duffy, president and CEO of the Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA) in Travel Pulse."

"Communication issues were also reportedly identified as a contributing factor in the Concordia. For example, it was reported that some of the crew in charge of lifeboats did not understand Italian, the working language on the vessel. The reports also indicate communication issues due to language barriers on the bridge, particularly between the captain and an Indonesian helmsman."

"(AGI) Grosseto - The crew of the cruise liner Costa Concordia was awarded the title of 'Seafarer of the year' in the Lloyd's List Global awards 2012. "Captain Francesco Schettino was delighted to know that his crew was awarded the prize 'for the courage and professional skills' shown during the Costa Concordia shipwreck, off the shores of Giglio Island", a statement of the law firm defending Schettino - who is under investigation and could be charged with multiple manslaughter - reads. The statement also stresses the importance of the "constant training" ordered by Schettino in the four months during which he was the ship captain. . ."

If they do reinstate him as a captain I can only wonder what that would do to the image of any of the other captains as well as the stock price. Would anyone feel comfortable sailing with someone like that. ::)

"Claims by the captain of the Costa Concordia that he saved lives by steering the ship closer to land when it struck rocks off the coast of Italy last January were disputed in court during the second day of a pre-trial hearing.

Giuseppe Cavo Dragone, an admiral in the Italian navy on a panel of experts studying the cause of the disaster, told the court in Grosseto, Tuscany that the fact the ship swung closer to land was luck rather than any skill by Captain Francesco Schettino.

He said the ship was pushed towards the shore by the wind and waves, contradicting Captain Schettino's insistence that he saved lives by steering the 1,000ft-long vessel close to the island of Giglio.

The court also heard that an echo sounder device that measured the depth of water beneath the vessel had been "inexplicably" switched off before the Concordia struck the rocks. Costa Cruises told the hearing that the ship had been equipped with more radar systems than needed, and that enough of them had been in operation to meet legal requirements.

However, Codacons, a consumer rights group, said the echo sounder could have helped prevent the disaster and avoid the 32 deaths.

"Meanwhile, it has emerged that the operation to salvage the Concordia will take at least six months longer than planned. Rescuers who had hoped the ship could be refloated and towed away in January now said that it is more likely to June at the earliest before the ship can be moved."

More than 400 divers, engineers and salvage experts are working on the operation, which is expected to cost £250m."

It also said Costa Crociere "after learning from the captain of the ship of the situation, did not put itself at the disposal of the relevant authorities"."The report found that Schettino ordered a change in the ship's course to carry out a "salute" to Giglio -- a seafaring tradition in Italy -- and arrived on the bridge when the liner was only two nautical miles from the island.

It said that fellow officers failed to warn the captain that the ship was too close to the shore and travelling too fast and that the helmsman mistakenly steered right instead of left moments before the impact.

After the liner hit the rock, tearing a massive gash in its hull, Schettino provided "false information" to the authorities about the situation on board and declared an emergency only with "considerable delay", the report said.

Some of the crew members who were meant to help passengers during the emergency did not have the correct training or an understanding of Italian.

But Costa Crociere's lawyer Marco De Luca said the hearings had shown his client had "very exhaustive ordinary and emergency management procedures" and ships that were "extremely advanced and modern from every point of view".

The experts also found Costa Crociere "could not have provided any technical assistance, considering the speed with which the ship flooded and ran aground".

Title: It was just a simple avoid the rocks misunderstanding by the helmsman?
Post by: Host Mike on October 18, 2012, 02:18:04 PM

"Schettino's defense team highlighted the role played by an Indonesian helmsman they said had misunderstood orders given by Schettino to avoid the rocks off Giglio. In a statement after the hearing was concluded, they said the expert report showed that Schettino's orders may not have been carried out correctly and the accident may have been avoided had they been."

"On Monday, the court heard evidence that the maps used on the ship were not adequate, that the vessel came too close to shore at too high a speed and that the crew was not properly prepared for the evacuation."

Title: No matter what the ship would have hit the rocks
Post by: Host Mike on October 18, 2012, 02:27:22 PM

"Jacob Rusli, who is not currently under investigation for the tragedy, allegedly did not hear properly or misunderstood the captain's orders.

But the chief prosecutor in the hearing, Francesco Verusio, pointed out that the ship was travelling at around 15 knots and that even if the helmsman had properly executed the order, it would have been too late to avoid the rocks."

Title: If walls or black boxes could talk, what would they say?
Post by: Host Mike on October 20, 2012, 04:28:47 PM

Officers were also heard shouting contradictory instructions as the disaster unfolded. The black box identified him shouting 'hard to port!’ just before the liner struck a rock in calm waters close to the Italian island of Giglio. At the same time his second in command yells ‘hard to starboard!’. Moments before the disaster Schettino is also heard saying: ‘Let’s go and do a salute (to Giglio).’ But as the ship, carrying more than 4,000 passengers and crew, goes close to the shore, he shouts at a helmsman to go to starboard to avoid catastrophe. After hitting the rocks, Schettino orders watertight compartments in the ship to be closed. He is heard asking: ‘So are we really going down? I don’t understand.’

Another officers is heard saying: 'Our ass is dragging along the seabed.' Schettino asked: 'What did we hit?' On being told that the Concordia had hit the reef, Schettino says: 'Are we really going down? I don't understand.' An officer is heard saying: 'It's the salute he wanted.' The recording concluded with an officer telling everyone to ‘abandon the ship’.

Marine experts have already said that a crowd-pleasing but risky manoeuvre in which the huge vessel passed close to Giglio was to blame for the collision on January 13. The experts - two admirals and two engineers - lay most of the blame for the collision and botched evacuation on Schettino.But they also noted that not all crew members understood Italian, not all had current certification, and not all passengers had had the chance to participate in evacuation drills.

Passengers described a confused and delayed evacuation, with many of the lifeboats unable to be lowered because the boat was listing too far to one side. Some jumped into the Mediterranean and swam to Giglio, while others had to be plucked from the vessel by rescue helicopters hours after the collision.

Schettino has insisted that by guiding the stricken ship to shallower waters near Giglio's port instead of immediately ordering an evacuation he potentially saved lives. He has claimed that another official, and not he, was at the helm when the ship struck. The timeline in the expert report, however, makes clear that he had assumed command six minutes before the ship struck the reef.

"Giuseppe Pilon, who rushed to the Concordia's engine room immediately after the accident, and another engine room officer, Giovanni Iaccarino, spoke publicly about the tragedy for the first time on Sunday night.

Mr Pilon said that Captain Schettino did not understand how desperate the situation was despite direct communication from the engine room.

"The local generator was completely flooded, we no longer had control of anything so I called Captain Schettino and he asked me about Engine 4 and 5 and I said to him, 'Captain, you haven't understood the situation – the water is up to the first deck.'

"They didn't tell me they had struck a rock... So I thought we had a leak. I didn't even know that we were close to Giglio."

Mr Iaccarino, who also appeared on the 'Domenica Live' TV talk show with Mr Pilon said Capt Schettino told officer Roberto Bosio: "Tonight we are in big trouble".

"He's being blamed for a cruise ship tragedy that claimed 32 lives, but Captain Francesco Schettino still wants to be paid.

The creators of an online petition, however, are trying to prevent the disgraced Costa Concordia captain from ever seeing a red cent.

The petition, posted by ForceChange, a site that publicizes protests from smaller groups, wants to stop Schettino from getting his job back or be paid the back pay that he is apparently requesting, according to an article in The Daily Telegraph.

"With his fate still unknown and the damage still so shocking, Schettino must not be rewarded compensation for his work," writes Kelly Hamilton, who posted the petition."

"I'm writing a book and I will reveal what people don't want to come to light," Schettino said, according to The Telegraph." "For example, Schettino claims he only left the ship when he began to fear for his life.

"I found myself standing on a deck which was tilted at a 90 degree angle. We could no longer walk, we had no grip, and people less agile than me ended up falling overboard. But notwithstanding the water that was flooding into the bridge, I still continued to help passengers get on board the lifeboats that were shuttling to and from the shore."

"At that point I could have chosen to die by being crushed by the ship 20 metres from the shore," Schettino continued, "or take command of the lifeboat and attempt to get dozens of people to safety. I chose the second option. There are dozens of witnesses who will confirm this." ???

Schettino's interview comes after reports the former captain was in negotiations for two €50,000 interviews (about $63,600), as well as unconfirmed rumors that he had brokered a book deal with a U.S. publisher, The Independent writes.

Carlo Rienzi, the president of the Codacons consumer group that is leading a class action against the owners of the Concordia, told the newspaper that any money Schettino does earn will be fair game in the suit.

"Every euro Mr Schettino earns, we'll try take off him and give it to the survivors and families of those who've lost loved ones," Rienzi said."

Title: Captain says that he was more or less forced into the lifeboat
Post by: Host Mike on November 18, 2012, 04:23:44 AM

"Schettino explains in the interview that he was more or less “forced into the lifeboat” and that he does not know if he slipped or fell. :D

Appearing to duck responsibility, Schettino says that he was not in command when the ship struck the reef but the ship was in the hands of an officer. But after evidence has surfaced showing the captain was in command at least 6 minutes before the ship struck the reef, the captain explains that he was on the phone and was distracted.

So is this book deal all about the money for Schettino? We were wondering the same thing and found that the group that is leading a class action suit against the owners of the Concordia is vowing to make sure all of the money that Schettino earns off the book goes to the survivors of the wreck and to the families who have lost loved ones. But to be sure, Schettino will make a pretty penny off the sales of this book as well."

"Mr. Feher's only pre-cruise training was as a violinist. He and others pressed into service were not properly prepared to help manage a disaster, though they acted bravely," said Holly Ostrov Ronai.

She said cruise line officials violated maritime policies by giving Mr. Feher and other personnel the answers to required safety-test questions before it was administered. The Budapest-based performer, whose only source of income was as a cruise-ship entertainer, was last seen helping children don life jackets before he drowned.

The civil actions brought on behalf of Mr. Feher and the other members of his performing company assert gross negligence on the part of Carnival Cruise Lines, the owner-operator of the vessel, along with Carnival Corp., its parent company in connection with the January 13, 2012 disaster. A demand for punitive damages is also included in the complaint.

Title: The one billion dollar and growing cost of the shipwreck
Post by: Host Mike on December 10, 2012, 09:23:50 PM

The update from CATCo says that industry loss estimates for the overall cost of the sinking of the Costa Concordia look set to rise after the international group of P&I Associations’ actual and expected insured loss estimate for Protection and Indemnity (Wreck Removal and Cargo/Crew/Passenger Liability) increased by approximately $130m, from circa $521m to $652m. The final settlement for the Hull & Machinery claim amounted to circa $520 million. This makes the overall loss total for Costa Concordia around $1.172 billion.

Title: Captain claims that he was on the phone on the bridge and was distracted
Post by: Host Mike on December 10, 2012, 09:30:49 PM

"Appearing to duck responsibility, Schettino says that he was not in command when the ship struck the reef but the ship was in the hands of an officer. But after evidence has surfaced showing the captain was in command at least 6 minutes before the ship struck the reef, the captain explains that he was on the phone and was distracted.

So is this book deal all about the money for Schettino? We were wondering the same thing and found that the group that is leading a class action suit against the owners of the Concordia is vowing to make sure all of the money that Schettino earns off the book goes to the survivors of the wreck and to the families who have lost loved ones. But to be sure, Schettino will make a pretty penny off the sales of this book as well."

"The U.S. Coast Guard will be part of Italian-led investigation into the grounding and partial sinking of the Italian-owned cruise ship Costa Concordia in January.

Coast Guard said on Nov. 19, that it would participate with the National Transportation Safety Board in the Italian marine casualty investigation into the tragic maritime episode off the coast of Italy in early 2012."

Mr Schettino, for whom prosecutors are likely to demand criminal indictments within weeks, made the comments to La Stampa in the run-up to the anniversary of the tragedy on 13 January.

“I’ve been painted as worse than Bin Laden, while my regret for what happened is enormous,” he said. He also complained that his professional achievements and the image of Italy had been “ridiculed” by the coverage of the disaster.

This coming Sunday on the island of Giglio off the Tuscan coast, where the vessel struck rocks before partially capsizing, a special mass will be held at the island’s port to mark the anniversary of the accident. A bronze commemorative plaque will then be placed in the harbour in memory of the 32 victims.

Mr Schettino was in charge of the 290-metre vessel, carrying over 4,000 passengers and crew, when in a deviation from its standard route, it passed close to the shore of Giglio to perform a crowd-pleasing sail-by manoeuvre. A collision with rocks tore a 50-metre hole in the vessel’s side. Senior lifeguard officials have said that the delayed call to evacuate the doomed vessel was to blame for most of the fatalities.

Prosecutors will ask a judge to indict Mr Schettino by the first week in February on charges including abandoning ship before his passengers and of manslaughter. Five other crew members and three senior Costa Cruises officials may also be sent to trial.

It has emerged that the vessel will not now be removed from its resting place outside Giglio port before the autumn. The legion of engineers working to return the vessel to an upright position and attach buoyancy devices had hoped to be able to tow it to the mainland to be dismantled before the start of this year’s summer season.

Meanwhile, the wreck’s appeal to sightseers was underlined after five German tourists had to be rescued after getting up close to the Concordia, only for their tiny boat to be inundated by large waves.

“It was a pretty stupid thing to do. They were lucky that it ended as it did – they could have quite easily sunk,” according to a coastguard spokesman.

"(ANSAmed) - Grosseto, January 8 - Authorities are preparing to mark the first anniversary of the cruise ship disaster that killed 32 people on January 13, 2012.

It's expected that as many as 900 people will gather on the pier of Giglio Island off the Tuscan coast to commemorate the deadly events after the Costa Concordia hit a rock that caused the massive ship to capsize.

Mayor Sergio Ortelli says the focus of the service on January 13 will be the survivors and families of those who died in the disaster, as well as emergency workers who rushed to pluck victims from the water.

Pieces of the rock upon which the Costa Concordia crashed have also been saved."

"Italy's environment minister warned last month that delays in removing the beached cruise liner could lead to further environmental damage.

Another outstanding element of the story is the legal proceedings involving Francesco Schettino, the captain at the helm of the ship.

He is facing possible criminal indictment for multiple charges of manslaughter.

Schettino is also claiming he was wrongly dismissed by Italy's Costa Crociere cruise line over the deadly accident.

A wrongful dismissal hearing continues on Wednesday, as Schettino's lawyer argues the dismissal process used by the company was not legitimate."

"Francesco Schettino, who is accused by prosecutors of causing the shipwreck with reckless seamanship and then abandoning the ship before all the 4229 passengers and crew had evacuated, defended himself in the interview shown on Raiuno public television.

"If we had not turned, we would not have hit anything," Schettino said, repeating a previous accusation made against the ship's Indonesian helmsman Jacob Rusli Bin, who he said had misunderstood his steering orders given in English.

"If the helmsman had understood correctly, the ship would have sailed past and nothing would have happened," Schettino said in the interview."

"The infamous captain - who has been dubbed "Captain Coward" by the tabloids - also remembered the moment he realized his ship was about to crash.

"When I went to the large window on the deck, I saw the mountain in front of me. We were going directly into the mountain!" he said.

"The person in charge of the radar was supposed to say that we had land in front of us. I was told that we were fine," he said.

They had an hour program on the Discovery channel or NATGEO channel the other night a which was supposed to be about the removal of the ship. It turned into another program mostly about the incident with the last 10 minutes dedicated to how they're going to turn the ship & float it to away. Good thing I recorded it & could skip past the old stuff. ;)

They had an hour program on the Discovery channel or NATGEO channel the other night a which was supposed to be about the removal of the ship. It turned into another program mostly about the incident with the last 10 minutes dedicated to how they're going to turn the ship & float it to away. Good thing I recorded it & could skip past the old stuff. ;)

The ship is going to be cut up for scrap, after she is towed somewhere suitable, once they retrieve it ! :o

"And unfortunately I was relying, in the last three minutes, on an officer, when all of a sudden he was handing me the control of the ship without giving me distance — nothing," Schettino said.

That, he said, was when he noticed foam on the water — a sign of shallow water or something jutting from the surface.

"I regret that I was trusting (that officer). I was trusting him before the accident, and also after the accident. And I have been living with these things inside me. I will never trust anyone anymore because this was a very deadly mistake," he said.

Schettino claimed he had no way to tell how many people were still on board when he left the vessel.

"People don't understand that the ship is 58 meters (nearly 200 feet) wide, so you don't have a chance to see who else is left on the other side. And in the moment the floor started to become steeper, you have no other option: To die, or to swim," he said. "So, I regret nothing."

"Giglio, Italy (CNN) -- A boat's horn bellowed 32 times off the coast of Italy on Sunday, honoring each of the victims who died a year ago when a luxury cruise liner ran aground.

Family members of those who perished tossed wreaths, lilies and notes into icy waters at a ceremony marking the anniversary of the Costa Concordia crash. And a large boulder bearing a plaque with victims' names was lowered into the same sea that claimed their lives.

The somber memorial was a sharp contrast to the chaos of a year ago, when the massive ship ran aground with 3,200 passengers and 1,000 crew members on board.

According to passengers' accounts, pandemonium erupted as guests rushed to fill the lifeboats and escape the ship. Some crew members helped passengers and then jumped overboard; remaining members seemed helpless to handle the melee."

Title: This captain and his crew did not know what to do
Post by: Host Mike on January 18, 2013, 03:41:32 PM

"Aventura newlyweds David and Denise Saba were in Italy one year ago Sunday. They were one of thousands excited to board the Costa Concordia for their honeymoon. That excitement was short lived.

"It felt like a horrible earthquake and the ship started tilting very quickly to one side... it was a scary moment , they stopped the engines and it got calm. people were screaming and they were in panic but they lied to us so we believed that everything was OK," said David Saba.

A they would find out, things were far from okay. The ship had run aground and the mammoth ship was taking on water rapidly through a massive hole.

"It was just like Titanic, people were throwing themselves on to the lifeboats. They wasted a lot of time and that's why people are dead today," said Denise Saba."People should not have thrown themselves to the water because they were in panic. This captain and his crew did not know what to do."

"GIGLIO, Italy (AP) - More time and money will be needed to remove the Costa Concordia cruise ship from the rocks off Tuscany where it capsized last year, in part to ensure the toxic materials still trapped inside don't leak into the marine sanctuary when it is righted, officials said Saturday.

Continue reading

On the eve of the first anniversary of the grounding, environmental and salvage experts gave an update on the unprecedented removal project under way, stressing the massive size of the ship - 112,000 tons, its precarious perch on the rocks off the port of Giglio island and the environmental concerns at play.

The pristine waters surrounding Giglio are part of a protected marine sanctuary for dolphins, porpoises and whales, and are a favorite for scuba divers. Already, tourism was off 28 percent last year, thanks in part to the eyesore in Giglio's port.

Franco Gabriele, the head of Italy's civil protection agency, told reporters that officials are now looking at September as the probable date for removal, taking into account conservative estimates for poor weather and rough seas. Originally, officials had said they hoped to have it removed in early 2013.

"As fog horns and sirens wailed, a crane on a tug lowered the boulder back onto the reef off Giglio where it belonged, returning it to the seabed affixed with a memorial plaque. Relatives of the dead threw flowers into the sea and embraced as they watched the ceremony from a special ferry that bobbed in the waves under a grey sky.

They wept during the Mass and ran their fingers over the names of the 32 dead that were engraved on a bronze plaque unveiled at the end of Giglio's jetty, near where the Concordia still lays on its side. And later, under a cold rain, they gathered on the jetty holding candles to observe a moment of silence at 9:45 p.m., the exact moment when the Concordia slammed into the reef after Capt. Francesco Schettino took it off its pre-programmed course and brought it closer to Giglio as a favour to friends from the island."

"Taking part in the anniversary commemoration was Capt. Gregorio De Falco of the Italian coast guard, who became something of a hero to survivors after his recorded conversations with Schettino during the evacuation were made public. In them, De Falco excoriated Schettino for having abandoned the ship before all passengers were off and ordered him to return, shouting the now-infamous order "Go on board (expletive)!"

Title: Claims against Carnival Corp. must be filed in Italy instead of Florida
Post by: Host Mike on February 10, 2013, 04:12:53 PM

"Law360, Miami (February 08, 2013, 7:36 PM ET) -- Carnival Corp. successfully defeated another U.S. suit over the deadly Costa Concordia shipwreck when a Florida federal judge ruled Wednesday that claims filed by three passengers and their parents would be better heard in an Italian court."

"Italian prosecutors broadened the inquiry into the Costa Concordia disaster on Thursday, announcing that they will investigate alleged failings by the cruise ship's owners.

Prosecutors accused the Genoa-based firm of failing to order the ship's captain to sound a general alarm when the 950ft-long cruise liner started taking on water after smashing into a rocky reef off the Tuscan island of Giglio in January last year.

The investigators, based in Grosseto in Tuscany, also said emergency procedures were not followed properly during the chaotic night-time evacuation of more than 4,000 passengers and crew.

In addition, they accused Costa Cruises of "playing down" the full extent of the damage done to the ship when it rammed into the rocky shoal, ripping a 140ft-long gash in its hull.

The company has insisted that it was misled as to the gravity of the situation by the ship's Italian captain, Francesco Schettino, who initially reported that the vessel had simply undergone a power failure and made no mention of the collision."

Title: If that rock could talk, what would it say?
Post by: Host Mike on February 10, 2013, 04:19:00 PM

"One year after the Italian cruise ship Costa Concordia wreckage, victims' relatives watched as a crane lowered part of a rock that was removed from the hull of the ship into the water.

Two Effer marine cranes 200000 on the Voe Earl platform have been nearby the shores of the Giglio island, Tuscany, for months for the removal of the shipwrecks. The cranes put the rock into the sea during the one-year anniversary ceremony. The rock had been torn from the ship during the collision and remained stuck in the hull for almost one year."

"A year after the disaster that killed 32 people, she told for the first time how it left her “destitute” and unable to mentally process the events, only crying for the first time this month. Ms Metcalf, who worked on the liner as part of a dance troupe, is among the Londoners fighting for compensation from the ship’s owner, Costa Cruises.

The 112,000-ton vessel awaits salvage off the Italian island of Giglio, where it ran aground with 4,229 people on board, including more than 1,000 crew. Ms Metcalf was praised after taking responsibility for roll call on her deck and ensuring that about 200 crew were evacuated onto lifeboats. She was one of the last people winched to safety.

She told how she had been drinking coffee in the bar on her evening off when the ship struck rocks at 9.42pm: “There was a horrific ripping sound, like an earthquake, and we were all thrown back. Everything was shaking and the glasses were flying off.

“Nobody really knew what to do. They told us it was an electrical fault.” The lights went out five minutes later. Then the 955ft long vessel began toppling over. Ms Metcalf dashed to her cabin, changing from her silk cocktail dress into jeans and trainers.

She said: “There was no higher level of crew that made it to the muster station who were capable of taking command, they were panicking. The way I’ve been brought up I couldn’t just abandon my responsibilities.

"We had some passengers who tried to jump off in panic and we had to haul their legs back from the edge.”

One friend was left paralysed after being crushed after running down a corridor to escape gushing water.

“People went to the mortuary and were chucking coffins out, and using them to float because the lifejackets were locked in trunks,” Ms Metcalf added. “There were lots of explosion sounds inside the ship and gas bubbling in the water that filled the cabins.”

As the vessel toppled further, she used rock-climbing skills learned as a teenager to clamber up surfaces: “The wall became our floor, the doorways became lift shafts”.

The dancer, three Indonesian crew and a Bulgarian plumber hauled themselves on to a higher part of the ship. Pointing at her watch, she told how she and the plumber used it to calculate how quickly the ship was sinking: “If we’d have jumped into the water we would have broken our bones from the metal underneath,” she said.

“I stayed on until I knew everyone I was responsible for was safe, but then I was stranded. I was trying to find every option how I could get off, then when I realised there wasn’t a way, I had a strange serenity and peace.

“I summarised my life, wrote a note to my parents and accepted I might not make it.” It was then that she posted the Facebook photo, using a phone belonging to one of the Indonesians. At 5am she was finally winched to safety.

She said: “I feel very sad for those families who haven’t been able to put to rest the remains of their loved ones. I haven’t coped with it for a year. I was destitute when I got off the ship. I lost everything, £13,000 worth of things, including all my dance equipment.”

Ms Metcalf became a legal firm’s “advocate for ship safety” travelling the world meeting disaster victims, and is working on the sales floor in Harrods. She married husband Robert, 42, just before Christmas.

“Initially when I came back I was running on the adrenalin of wanting to get the information out there. It’s an accident that could have been prevented,” she said. “It completely ruins your life. I met the family of a helicopter crash in Peru and that night I broke down hysterically crying, which I haven’t done for a year. I need to see a psychologist and just want to get back to dancing.”

"ROME -- (AP) – Italian prosecutors on Monday officially requested an indictment of the Costa Concordia’s captain on manslaughter charges in the shipwreck of the cruise liner that killed 32 people last year off the Tuscan coast.

Prosecutors based in Grosseto, Tuscany, also are seeking a trial for Francesco Schettino, the captain of the cruise liner, on charges of causing a shipwreck and abandoning the vessel during the frantic and confused evacuation of passengers and crew."

"Prosecutors also said Costa Crociere SpA, the Italian cruise company, has asked for a plea bargain agreement which, if it was accepted, could see Costa pay a 1 million euro ($1.35 million) fine. The company has said Schettino ignored its policies and is to blame for the shipwreck."

"The prosecutors reiterated claims that Capt Schettino was distracted in the minutes before the collision by the presence on the bridge of a Domnica Cemortan, a Moldovan ex-dancer.

Her presence, as well as that of the ship's head waiter, led to "confusion and distraction" on the bridge as Capt Schettino attempted to execute a salute of Giglio by sailing perilously close to its rocky shore."

Title: A five-year-old girl and her father died after they were turned away
Post by: Host Mike on March 10, 2013, 01:25:57 AM

"A five-year-old girl and her father died after they were turned away from a lifeboat when the Costa Concordia cruise ship hit a rock and started sinking, according to new documents.

The dossier revealed on Tuesday reported on their last moments, as well as other victims of the tragedy, documenting acts of heroism as well as gross negligence, according to the Daily Express.

The papers show how Williams Arlotti and his five-year-old daughter, Dayana, died because they could not find a place in a lifeboat on the port side.

When they went in search of a place on the other side, the ship rolled over and they drowned.

The file explains their final moments, saying they died because "having not found places in a lifeboat on deck four on the port side, they were directed by members of the crew to the starboard side and, while negotiating the interior of the ship, they fell into an abyss, which was created as the starboard side of the ship overturned", reports the Daily Telegraph.

Title: Florida State Court could provide a remedy not available in Italy?
Post by: Host Mike on March 14, 2013, 07:48:01 AM

"Plaintiff's counsel Marc Jay Bern cited the Court's closing statements in celebrating this great victory for the plaintiffs: "As the District Court recognized, 'this case is about international and U.S. passengers injured on a pleasure cruise run by a private corporation and whether that corporation properly adhered to safety standards or was other negligent.' We are thrilled that we can now turn our attention to litigating the facts of this case before a Florida State court where the plaintiffs can expect their interests will be protected rather than in Italy where the courts are notoriously slow and cases for mass torts such as shipwrecks have taken as long as thirty years without final decisions. Additionally passengers litigating their claims in Italy would be subject to paying for litigation costs and under the American system, plaintiffs' law firms only seek compensation if their clients are successful. Thus the Florida state courts provide our clients the promise of a remedy not available in Italy."

Costa had asked for a plea bargain deal to respond to the administrative sanctions, which under Italian law are for companies whose employees commit crimes. Judge Valeria Montesarchio of the Grosseto tribunal accepted the plea after a hearing."

"Critics have hit out at the cruise line's ability to distance itself from culpability, especially as its marine operations director, Roberto Ferrarini, is among the six suspects who could stand trial over the accident."

"A report into Mr Ferrarini's role in the accident condemned him and said he seemed "not to have the pulse of the conditions of the ship" after the accident occurred.

The report also said he should have told the captain to abandon ship as soon as he heard that three sections of the vessel were flooded."

However, both Mr Ferrarini and the company have blamed Captain Schettino and the crew for not fully informing them of the conditions on board.

There are six people who could stand trial for charges including manslaughter, but the final stages to decide who will be indicted will not begin until Monday.

Despite the relatively small fine from the courts, Costa is expected to pay out much more in civil cases.

The family of five-year-old Dayana Arlotti - the youngest victim from the ship - reportedly received a seven-figure payout last July from Costa.

Survivors of the accident have been offered a basic compensation payment of €11,000, but Codacons a national consumer group leading a class action against the cruise company, has advised them to reject the offer.

It believes they should be paid at least €125,000 each due to the possibility of psychological trauma."

Grosseto - The deadly Costa Concordia cruise ship disaster returns to court in Italy on Monday with the start of a long series of indictment hearings against six suspects including captain Francesco Schettino.

Among the five crew members accused by prosecutors is the luxury liner's Indonesian helmsman Jacob Rusli Bin, suspected of contributing to the tragedy by misunderstanding a command moments before the crash

Thirty-two people lost their lives in the accident, including a 5-year-old girl.

Rusli Bin's whereabouts are not known but he has been assigned a lawyer and the accusations against him will be heard in absentia.

ANSA said investigators were looking at five individuals who were on the board at the time of the shipwreck. The investigation is in addition to the investigation into the Costa Concordia's captain and crew members.

"ROME — An Italian judge on Wednesday ordered the captain of the cruise ship Costa Concordia to stand trial on manslaughter and other charges related to the deadly capsizing of the vessel off the coast of Tuscany in January 2012.

The judge set a July 9 trial date for the captain, Francesco Schettino, 52. He is accused of causing the ship to run aground, resulting in the deaths of 32 people, and then abandoning the vessel while many of its 4,229 passengers and crew members were still aboard."

Three years and four months for 34 lives? I'm glad the prosecutors turned down the offer . . . . .offer? . . . .that's an outrage.

Title: A catalogue of errors by 53-year-old Schettino are documented
Post by: Host Mike on June 02, 2013, 02:41:48 AM

A catalogue of errors by 53-year-old Schettino are documented in the dossier into the disaster by the Italian maritime authorities.

The captain caused the collision by sailing too fast, too close to shore, and he was distracted by people who had no business on the bridge, it found.

He had failed to consult large-scale maps, and used the wrong landmark on the island to turn the ship. He then delayed sounding the general alarm, and when he did eventually speak to the coastguard, downplayed the seriousness of the incident.

The report appears to demolish Schettino’s claim that he saved thousands of lives by steering the ship into shore, saying the crash caused the rudder to fail. Instead, a detailed chronology reveals how he left his 4,228 passengers to fend for themselves.

At 9.45pm, the ship ran aground at a rate of 16 knots. As the rocks tore a 150ft gash in the ship’s belly, the loud scrape and subsequent blackout made it obvious to everyone on board that something was very wrong. Five watertight compartments were immediately submerged, meaning the ship was doomed.

But it took another 31 minutes for Schettino to alert the authorities and it was not until an hour after impact that the order to abandon ship was given. At 11.19pm, with 300 passengers and crew still on board, the captain and officers abandoned the bridge.

Shortly afterwards, when coastguard officials called Schettino’s mobile phone, he had already slipped onto a lifeboat.

He was ordered to return to his vessel but continued towards shore. By the time he reached Giglio, 80 passengers and crew were still struggling to stay alive on the sinking vessel.

Human error is ‘the root cause of the Costa Concordia casualty’, the report concludes, much of it the ‘inadequacy’ of the ship’s command and Schettino’s ‘unconventional behaviour’.

But others were also at fault, the report found. Members of the bridge team are said to have been ‘passive’, neglecting to question the captain’s actions and warn him of the impending impact.

While it did not absolve Costa Cruises’ shoreside oversight, the report said Capt. Francesco Schettino lied about the extent of damages to authorities. It further said that his delays in declaring an emergency and in deciding to abandon ship had fatal consequences.

Had passengers been called to lifeboats earlier, “all of them could have reached their salvation out of the Concordia,” the report said.

The report variously describes the evacuation as adequate and chaotic and faults the bridge team for being too passive. But it said the key mistakes lay in the navigation planning phase of the voyage and in Schettino’s reluctance to accept that the ship was sinking.

“The ship was sailing too close to the coastline, in a poorly lit shore area, under the Master’s command who had planned to pass at an unsafe distance at night time at high speed (15.5 knots). The danger was considered so late that the attempt to avoid grounding was useless,” the report said.

Schettino’s attitude in reviewing the navigation plan was “arbitrary,” the report asserted.

“The passive attitude of the staff on the bridge is just as reprehensible,” it added, chiding the officers for failing to waive Schettino off the risky course despite having criticized it among themselves before his arrival on the bridge.The Concordia hit the rock that ripped a 175-foot gash in its side at 9:45 p.m.

Rather than sound the emergency alarm, Schettino told passengers only that the ship had an electrical blackout, a lie he would repeat to the Civitavecchia harbor master and the Coast Guard station there, the report said.

Not until 10:33 p.m. was the general emergency alarm sounded, the first announcement calling passengers to their muster station followed at 10:36 p.m. By that time, the ship was already listing 11 degrees. It isn’t until 10:54 p.m. that the ship’s second officer communicated “abandon ship” in English over the public address system.

By that time, some passengers had boarded lifeboats on their own. The report said many procedures set for emergency management were not followed.

“There was chaos and confusion, lack of communication,” the report stated. “In other words, a complete disorganization, mainly because nobody by the bridge coordinated the emergency according with the muster list and the related procedure for abandoning ship.”

Still, the crew performed “adequately” under increasingly dire conditions, it said.

It also noted that while the work language of the ship was Italian, officers such as the Bulgarian first engineer said they didn’t fully understand Italian.

Conversely, the helmsman said he sometimes couldn’t follow orders given by the captain in English.

The report said had passengers been mustered at roughly 10 p.m., when the bridge first learned that three watertight compartments of the ship had flooded, they could have been in lifeboats before 11:12 p.m., when listing of 30 degrees started to make it hard to lower them to safety.

Although the Italian Navigation Code says the captain must be the last person onboard to abandon ship, the report says Schettino departed at 11:19 p.m. with 200 to 300 passengers and crew still aboard the Concordia, leaving only a single officer temporarily on the bridge to manage their escape.

At 12:30 a.m. the Coast Guard reached Schettino by radio in a lifeboat, which he said he had tumbled into as the ship listed. He was ordered to return to the ship but did not.

In accordance with the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea, the Concordia was designed to survive the flooding of two of its watertight compartments beneath the bulkhead deck, but five compartments were breached, which led to the accelerated listing.

In addition, once it rose high enough, water began spreading through openings in the bulkhead deck to other compartments. The ship was built with a double bottom, but the gash occurred farther up on the side, where only a single hull kept water outside the ship."

Title: Undocumented passenger with a key to a room on the Captain's private floor.
Post by: Host Mike on June 14, 2013, 02:58:26 AM

"The Moldovan dancer seen dining with Captain Francesco Schettino the night the Costa Concordia ran aground is to seek damages from the captain and the ship’s parent company."

"Immediately after the accident she reportedly told investigators that she was “in love” with Schettino."

Cemortan’s Italian lawyer Gianluca Madonna on Wednesday told The Telegraph his client rejected any suggestion of a relationship between the couple and that she was seeking damages against the captain and the company which had failed to defend her publicly or keep its promise to rehire her.

She is also considering separate action against several Italian newspapers, magazines and TV channels who allegedly slandered her reputation for suggesting she had been involved with the captain.

“She is a hard worker and is a beautiful dancer, very professional,” Mr Madonna said. “The media has presented her as a prostitute.” He said his client was angry at the way she had been abandoned by the company and would be seeking damages “between 200,000 and 300,000 euros” (£255,000) in compensation — well above the 11,000 euros being offered by the company to survivors.

“The action against Costa Cruises is for all the problems they created,” Mr Madonna said. “She paid for a ticket on the ship and received a key to the room an hour and a half later. Her room was on the same private floor as Schettino’s room.”

He said neither Schettino nor the company had said anything to defend her.

“On the night of the accident she risked her life helping Russian passengers because there was no one on board who spoke Russian. Since the accident she has not worked regularly and Costa did not renew her contract.”

When contacted by The Telegraph through her Italian agent today, Ms Cemortan sent an email response saying she was out of the country."

Title: Sailing too fast, too close without a good map, distracted and in denial
Post by: Host Mike on June 14, 2013, 03:16:25 AM

"Among other damning revelations in the 176-page dossier is that the coastguard were not alerted to the incident until they were phoned by a passenger’s mother.

Half an hour after the collision, Captain Francesco Schettino had yet to put out a distress signal.

But by this time a mother of one of the passengers had informed police of an accident, after receiving a call saying that the ship was in blackout, a ceiling had collapsed and those on board were putting on their life jackets.

A catalogue of errors by 53-year-old Schettino are documented in the dossier into the disaster by the Italian maritime authorities.

The captain caused the collision by sailing too fast, too close to shore, and he was distracted by people who had no business on the bridge, it found.

He had failed to consult large-scale maps, and used the wrong landmark on the island to turn the ship. He then delayed sounding the general alarm, and when he did eventually speak to the coastguard, downplayed the seriousness of the incident.

At 9.45pm, the ship ran aground at a rate of 16 knots. As the rocks tore a 150ft gash in the ship’s belly, the loud scrape and subsequent blackout made it obvious to everyone on board that something was very wrong. Five watertight compartments were immediately submerged, meaning the ship was doomed.

But it took another 31 minutes for Schettino to alert the authorities and it was not until an hour after impact that the order to abandon ship was given. At 11.19 pm, with 300 passengers and crew still on board, the captain and officers abandoned the bridge.

Human error is ‘the root cause of the Costa Concordia casualty’, the report concludes, much of it the ‘inadequacy’ of the ship’s command and Schettino’s ‘unconventional behaviour’.

Title: Concordia cruise ship could be righted in September
Post by: Host Mike on June 26, 2013, 11:32:44 AM

"(By Christopher Livesay) Grosseto, June 25 - The half-sunk Costa Concordia cruise ship that has been stranded off the coast of Tuscany since striking a rock formation at the start of 2012 could be righted from its current position this September, Italy's civil protection agency said Tuesday. "We will have a clearer idea of the timing after checks on the submerged section and then know if the boat can leave the (waters around) the island in November or March," avoiding winter, Civil Protection Department head Franco Gabrielli said on a visit to the Island of Giglio."

"Marc Jay Bern and Mitchell Proner, lead Attorneys for 104 survivors of the 2012 Costa Concordia cruise ship disaster, announced that their clients have won another victory against Carnival Corporation when the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit remanded their claims yesterday to the Florida State Court for continued litigation. The July 1, 2013 order affirmed the District Court's prior remand order, concerning two cases, Abeid-Saba, et al., v. Carnival Corporation et al., (Docket No.: 12-CV-23513) and Scimone, et al. v. Carnival Corp. et al. ("Scimone II"), (Docket No.: 12-CV-23505). Both cases arise from plaintiffs' claims that they were injured when the Costa Concordia capsized after grounding off the Italian coast."

"He has defended himself saying that the ship was already tilting at a 90-degree angle and that he was coordinating the rescue from the shore.

Schettino says he slipped and fell onto a lifeboat.

The court will rule on the charges he faces of multiple manslaughter, abandoning ship and causing environmental damage but the trial by media has already delivered its guilty verdict.

A widely quoted piece of evidence against him is a phone call in which a coast guard official is heard upbraiding Schettino and ordering him to “get back on board, for fuck’s sake”.

Several passengers have said they saw Schettino drinking on the night of the tragedy in the company of an attractive young blonde, later identified as Moldovan passenger Domnica Cemortan."

One of his former teachers at the prestigious Nino Bixio Nautical Institute told AFP that Schettino was a risk taker and pointed out that the ship was travelling far too fast at the moment of impact.

“There’s a character problem there,” Antonio Ferraiuolo said in a recent interview.

While acknowledging he could be a show-off, several former colleagues have however defended Schettino when questioned by investigators.

Fellow Costa captain Mauro Mautone said he was “a very serious, reliable, well-trained person”. Another, Mario Moretta, said Schettino was “well-trailed and with an excellent skill-set”. Schettino’s lawyers, Domenico and Francesco Pepe, have said they will show the court that “no single person was responsible” for the disaster.

They plan to probe the role played by Costa managers, the type of steel used to build the ship, as well as the apparent malfunctioning of sealed doors and back-up generators on board.

Another group of lawyers calling themselves “Justice for the Concordia”, who are suing Costa on behalf of dozens of survivors, have said the company’s managers should also stand trial.

Title: "Madonna, what have I done" said Schettino just after the crash
Post by: Host Mike on July 09, 2013, 04:01:18 PM

"Captain Francesco Schettino, dubbed Italy’s “most hated man” by tabloids over the spectacular crash of his cruise ship in 2012 with the loss of 32 lives, went on trial on Tuesday charged with manslaughter.

The 52-year-old, also dubbed “Captain Coward” over accusations that he abandoned ship while terrified passengers were still trapped onboard, looked tense as he arrived for the start of the trial in Grosseto.

It is being held in a local theatre in the city, the closest to the site of the wreck of the Costa Concordia on the island of Giglio, due to the large numbers of survivors from the tragedy expected to attend.

Schettino, wearing large sunglasses and a bright blue suit, came in through the press entrance by mistake and was immediately mobbed by reporters, fending them off and asking to be let through.

Schettino, who is not being detained during the trial, has asked for television cameras not to be allowed in.

“Otherwise it would be a film,” he said in an interview with Italian daily Il Messaggero.

“There has been media havoc since the tragedy... This is not some village festival, this is a trial. There are people who died and a man who will try to explain,” he said.

“I really think the truth will out,” he said."

The hearing was cut short after just a few minutes because of a national lawyers’ strike and the trial was postponed to July 17.

With his slicked-back hair and macho swagger, Schettino has been portrayed as a villain who was showing off in front of a female guest by performing a risky “salute” manoeuvre which ended in tragedy.

“Madonna, what have I done?” he was heard gasping on audio recordings from the bridge just after the crash.

But his defence team has said that while he made mistakes he should not be the sole defendant, and the ship’s owner Costa Crociere, Europe’s top cruise operator, should share at least some of the blame.

Lawyers for some survivors say he is a scapegoat.

Locals in Grosseto also showed a degree of sympathy for the captain.

“We cannot just crucify Schettino,” said 28-year-old Maria at a bar in the city centre.

As he unloaded groceries outside a store, Giacomo Melluso said: “Maybe it wasn’t all Schettino’s fault.”

Up to 450 witnesses and 250 plaintiffs could be called during the trial, which has been long awaited by the families of the victims and survivors who have complained about delays in Italy’s justice system.

"Schettino has claimed he had to abandon the capsizing boat while people were still aboard before it became impossible to launch any more lifeboats and he planned to direct the rest of the evacuation from shore. He also has claimed that in the darkness he didn’t see a ladder he could have used to climb back aboard."

On Giglio, where residents depend on tourism and fishing for their livelihoods, the wreckage still mars the panorama from the island’s port. Salvage experts had originally predicted the ship could be tipped upright in an ambitious operation so towing could begin in spring of this year. But that timetable has slipped away.

"The removal project involves some 400 workers representing 18 nationalities, including engineers and divers. On Monday, crews were busy securing some of the caissons being attached to one side of the crippled ship, which, the planners hope, will help the wreckage stay afloat when eventually righted so it can be towed to the mainland.

Islanders are impatient for the removal of the eyesore.

“We want our island back as it was,” Giglio’s mayor, Sergio Ortelli, told The Associated Press as he looked at the blue cove where he used to swim. Now, towering cranes and platforms of the removal team loom over the shipwreck.

Ortelli said authorities told the islanders the operation will begin in September to bring the wrecked ship upright again.

The island is still awaiting compensation for damages caused by the shipwreck, he said. “Our image was internationally damaged, and tourism figures have dropped off noticeably,” the mayor said."

"On Saturday five employees from an Italian cruise company were convicted of manslaughter for the Costa Concordia shipwreck that killed 32 people.

With the employees receiving sentences of less than three years, lawyers for victims and survivors are criticizing the ruling as too lenient."

"On Saturday, lawyers representing the 32 victims of the shipwreck said the sentences of the plea bargain - a fraction of what is usually handed down for manslaughter - were inadequate given the gravity of the disaster.

"It seems like a sentence for illegal construction," said lawyer Massimiliano Gabrielli. "It's an embarrassment."

Another lawyer for victims, Daniele Bocciolini, called the sentences "insufficient" and questioned the prosecutors' hypothesis placing the lion's share of the blame on Capt. Francesco Schettino."

"The next hearing in Schettino's case is scheduled for September 23. Schettino faces three criminal charges: involuntary manslaughter for the 32 deaths, causing a maritime disaster and causing personal injury to 150 people who were badly hurt in the accident."

"The boat's helmsman, cabin service director, two ship officers and the head of the Italian company's crisis team were sentenced to up to two years and 10 months in prison for multiple manslaughter, negligence and shipwreck.

"The reading of the list of the victims began with the death of a Frenchman, Francis Servel, who `'not having found a place on the lifeboat, threw himself into the sea without a life vest." He was `'sucked toward the bottom of the whirlpool produced by the final flipping over on the right side of the ship, and then died due to asphyxiation."

Shortly after the tragedy, survivors recounted how Servel had given his wife his life vest because she didn't know how to swim.

The bodies of victims No. 31 and 32 were never found, but after a long, futile search of the ship's interior and the nearby waters, they were declared dead.

One of them was a middle-aged Italian passenger, Maria Grazia Trecarichi, who, with no place on a lifeboat, and `'while waiting to be rescued" while wearing a life vest, `'slid off into the sea because of the progressive tilt of the boat" and presumably drowned, the court official said, reading from the indictment.

Victim No. 32 was a Filipino waiter, Russel Terence Rebello. The court heard how the crewman `'remained on the ship to carry out the lowering of the last lifeboats" and either fell or dove into the sea because of the Concordia's dramatic tilt and was presumed to have drowned.

Other victims drowned aboard, as violently swirling water rose up inside the ship.

The court heard how some passengers were "sucked into a vortex" of water rushing into the ship when the Concordia capsized. This happened after the crew told them to go to the other side of the ship where lifeboats were being launched, and the passengers ended up trying to walk down a tilting corridor."

Title: Were the passengers abandoned by the crew as well as the captain?
Post by: Host Mike on July 22, 2013, 06:51:48 PM

`'Frankly, I'm not angry with Schettino," said Gianluca Gabrielli, a 33-year-old Roman who is a surviving passenger. `'I'm angry with the whole crew.They were smiling at the beginning, but when they realized that there was danger, they escaped, abandoning us," Gabrielli said outside the Grosseto theater, which is serving as a makeshift courtroom to allow more space for the public.

Many survivors who jumped into the sea and swam to shore have recalled their shock and amazement that Schettino was already there while others were still on the boat."

"The captain of the capsized Costa Concordia has asked the judge at his manslaughter trial to order tests on the cruise liner's wreckage to determine why electrical and other systems failed after the vessel struck a reef off an Italian island in 2012, killing 32 people."

"GROSSETO, Italy - Lawyers for Francesco Schettino, captain of the shipwrecked Costa Concordia cruise liner, made a second unsuccessful attempt Wednesday to reach a plea deal in a trial over the disaster in which 32 people died."

"On the first day of the trial, defense lawyers said Schettino would plead guilty in exchange for a sentence of three years and five months, but prosecutors rejected the offer.

It was Schettino’s second attempt at a plea deal. A previous offer to serve three years and four months was rejected in May."

"In the very near future, engineers will attempt to pull the battered ship upright and float it away. The hulk is snagged on jagged outcroppings of rock in 60 feet of water, groaning and swaying precariously with each incoming wave on the edge of a steep slope that drops 200 feet to the bottom of the sea. If the operation goes well, it will be the greatest success in the history of maritime salvage. But if a single thing goes wrong, the boat will tear apart or sink whole, seriously polluting the Pelagos Sanctuary for Mediterranean Marine Mammals—the largest park of its kind in Europe—which surrounds Giglio. The waters are a haven for dolphins, porpoises, whale calves and scores of other sea creatures. Exquisite coral reefs line the seafloor immediately below the stranded, rusting ship."

"Aside from the blister tanks, which provide 6,000 tons of buoyancy, 11 other tanks or "sponsons" have been attached to the port side of the ship. When the ship is rotated, if all goes according to plan, it will come to rest on six steel platforms that have been placed on the sea bed, on the offshore side. Because the ship is lying on two underwater reefs with a valley in between, salvage workers and divers had to pump 18,000 tons of cement into grout bags that were used to fill the gap to support the ship's hull."

"Once the parbuckling is complete, the next phase -- removing the ship from its present location and towing it to a mainland port for dismantling -- will have to wait another eight to 10 months for winter to pass."

"The man in charge of salvaging the wreck of the Costa Concordia which crashed off the coast of Tuscany last year has warned the massive luxury cruise ship could fracture when it is rotated in early September."

Title: Costa Concordia must be raised by winter or could break apart
Post by: Host Mike on August 20, 2013, 06:29:38 PM

"Gabrielli and his department want assurances that when the operation does take place the ship, already in danger of breaking up under its own weight, will not break apart. That could see much of its contents spilled into the protected waters of the Tuscan Bay.

But Cirillo believes a delay past the fall would create an even more dangerous situation. He fears winter storms could tear the boat apart where it sits. It has survived one winter there, 300 meters from the island of Giglio and with 65 percent of the ship lying underwater."

"THE INSURANCE industry is facing a $1.1bn (£715m) bill for the recovery of the Costa Concordia cruise ship, Munich Re said yesterday.

The world’s biggest reinsurer said the entire $500m cost of the ship had already been covered but the rescue process continued to swallow funds. Munich Re said its final share of the bill for the ship, which sunk off the Italian coast in January 2012, had risen to €100m (£87m)."

"ROME (Reuters) - The wrecked Costa Concordia cruise ship could be upright again next week, nearly two years after the liner capsized and killed at least 30 people off the Italian coast."

"Divers have pumped 18,000 metric tons of cement into bags below the ship to support it and prevent it from breaking up in an operation which is expected to last 8-10 hours and is part of a salvage operation estimated to cost at least $300 million.

A buoyancy device acting "like a neck brace for an injured patient" will hold together the ship's bow, and fishing nets will catch debris as it rises from beneath the ship, said Nicholas Sloane, senior salvage master at Titan Salvage.

The salvage team will go through the ship cabin by cabin and had over items found on board to the Italian state prosecutor, and the vessel will be towed away to be dismantled."

Title: Lack of planning and communication and a passivity of the whole navigating team
Post by: Host Mike on September 17, 2013, 09:34:06 AM

"Initial findings of the Italian investigators into the Concordia flagged up problems on the ship’s bridge – not just the well-publicised allegations against Captain Francesco Schettino, but a lack of planning and communication, and a passivity among the whole navigating team."

Title: Ship didn't budge for the first three hours after the operation began
Post by: Host Mike on September 17, 2013, 11:01:46 AM

"Never before has such an enormous cruise ship been righted, and the crippled Concordia didn't budge for the first three hours after the operation began, engineer Sergio Girotto told reporters. But after some 6,000 tons of force were applied using a complex system of pulleys and counterweights, "we saw the detachment" from the reef thanks to undersea cameras, he said.

Girotto said the cameras did not immediately reveal any sign of the two bodies that were never recovered from among the 32 who died Jan. 13, 2012 when the Concordia slammed into a reef and capsized after the ship's captain steered the luxury liner too close to Giglio Island."

Title: "It was a perfect operation, I would say" says Carnival technical team head
Post by: Host Mike on September 17, 2013, 11:07:46 AM

"She is standing upright better than anyone thought she would be," said Nick Sloane, the senior salvage master, about the vessel three football fields in length. "When she started moving, she moved slowly but surely. There was no twisting at all. It was exactly as the plan said it would be."

In an unprecedented and painstaking process that involved massive pulleys, cables and steel tanks, the 500-person salvage crew from 26 countries rolled the 114,000-ton vessel off the rocks on which it had rested since it ran aground.

"It was a perfect operation, I would say," said Franco Porcellacchia, the head of the technical team for the cruise line Costa Crochiere, owned by American firm Carnival Cruises."

"There appeared to be no sign of leaks, Gabrielli told reporters -- a promising sign, as the wrecked liner is full of spoiled food and chemicals in material such as paint and lubricants.

"The sides of the ship will need major work and repair, but today we have really taken a clear step to allow the ship to be taken away," Gabrielli said."

"The seabed is still littered with sun deck chairs that floated from the ship's balconies and upper deck when it finally came to a rest in January 2012. Fish swim around the sunbed legs and seaweed has grown through some of the mesh seating. The beds are spread out in a surreal scene that looks like a set from an underwater science fiction film. Shoes, mattresses, dinner plates and thousands of pieces of cutlery shimmer in the divers' lights on a bed of sea grass.

Divers have not been deep inside the massive ship for nearly a year. The salvage divers only work on the outside of the ship and do not have authority to enter the vessel, with the exception of a work area they have created with a false floor on the upper port side deck, unless accompanied by Coast Guard divers.

Not only is the Concordia still chock full of passengers' possessions the Costa Cruises company hopes to return, but the ship is still considered a crime scene. Thirty-two people died in the accident and the ship's erstwhile captain, Francesco Schettino, is facing charges of multiple manslaughter and causing the shipwreck after piloting the 290-meter ship into the rocks on Giglio last year.

The last divers to comb through the Concordia's sunken bowels were there to search in vain for the last two victims, still believed to be trapped somewhere under the ship or buried in a watery grave at the bottom of the hollow hull. The salvage crew believe they know about where the bodies might be found, but there is no guarantee until the ship is lifted whether they will be found at all."

"Fishermen off Giglio say that the fish have changed, too. They are much larger and harder to catch after gorging on the ship's offerings. The freezers that have not burst under the water pressure are still locked with their rotting thawed contents sealed inside. Fridges too, filled with milk, cheese, eggs and vegetables, have been closed tight since the disaster. One has to only imagine leaving a home freezer -- a fraction of the size of the industrial freezers used by cruise ships -- unplugged for 20 months to get an idea of the type of rancid mess trapped inside.

Rodolfo Raiteri, head of the Coast Guard dive team, told CNN that his divers had to confront an array of deep-sea threats, from floating knives to lethal bed sheets and flowing curtains that could have easily become entangled in the divers' safety cords. There were also floating chairs and large chunks of marble and crystal chandeliers that constantly detached and fell from the sideways ship's ceilings every time the ship creaked and shifted as it settled onto two underwater rocky mountain peaks. All that debris, along with thousands of dinner plates, can be seen stacked against the underwater windows in some of the salvage video."

"Dubbed "Captain Coward" and "Italy's most hated man" in the tabloids for apparently abandoning ship while passengers were still on board, Schettino is currently on trial in the Tuscan town of Grosseto.

On Monday, he told the court that the ship's Indonesian helmsman was to blame for causing the accident, after misunderstanding a crucial order.

His defence team also asked permission for experts to go aboard the wreckage to determine whether technical problems contributed to the disaster, after reports that some safety mechanisms failed to function, aggravating the situation.

Schettino, who is on trial for manslaughter and abandoning ship, faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted."

"Thirty bodies were recovered from the wreck after the January 13, 2012 tragedy but two -- Italian passenger Maria Grazia Trecarichi and Indian waiter Russel Rebello -- are still officially reported missing.

The search for the bodies began earlier this week after the 114,500-ton ship was lifted upright last week in the biggest salvage operation of its kind.

Italian news agency ANSA said the remains that had been found were bones and that special permission was required from prosecutors to bring them to the surface."

Title: More remains found at site of cruise ship wreck in Italy
Post by: Host Mike on October 03, 2013, 03:25:13 AM

"The agency said last week it had found remains that could belong to the last two missing victims from the disaster on January 13, 2012, when the ship capsized after striking rocks, killing 32 people.

"Other remains have also been found and are currently undergoing DNA tests," the agency's chief Franco Gabrielli told reporters on Wednesday. "We are waiting for the results of the analysis," he said."

"It was too calm on the bridge considering what was happening," said Giovanni Iaccarino, describing at Schettino's trial the events after the ship hit rocks off the island of Giglio on the night of January 14, 2012.

"We were telling the bridge that everything was out of order," he told the court in Grosseto, the city nearest to the site of the crash, where the trial against Schettino began in July.

Iaccarino went down to the engine room to see for himself after the impact of the crash, as water flooded into the ship through a gash in its side.

"It seems they did not realise the gravity of the situation," he said, adding: "They were saying 'okay, received' but they were not giving orders."

He said he saw Schettino later, as the ship keeled over, and that "he was trying to help but he seemed lost, he did not seem the person I knew"."

Title: Indian waiter remains may have been located
Post by: Host Mike on October 09, 2013, 06:32:57 PM

"Rome — Italian rescuers have found more human remains on the wreck of Italy's Costa Concordia, which are believed to belong to one of two victims who are still missing, the civil protection agency said Tuesday.

The "remains of a human body, which could be one of the two missing, an Indian waiter" were found on the third bridge of the cruise-liner which crashed off the tiny island of Giglio in January 2012, said Francesca Maffini, the agency's spokeswoman."

"THE world's largest heavy lifting ship may be used to remove the wreck of the Costa Concordia from the Italian island of Giglio, where it capsized after hitting the rocks in January 2012.

The semi-submersible Dockwise Vanguard can carry a weight of up to 120,000 tons – 5,500 more than the 950ft Concordia, which was successfully hauled upright last month and is due to be taken away for scrap."

"The successful raising of the Concordia was hailed as a much-needed boost to Italian national pride – despite the fact that the salvage teams came from nearly 20 nations. But the deliberations over where the Concordia will be taken to be cut up for scrap is becoming mired in a familiar mix of political meddling, bureaucratic ineptitude, and squabbling between different parts of Italy.

The nearest port is Piombino but its harbor isn’t deep enough to accommodate the ship and would need to undergo significant dredging and expansion. That work has not even started – even though the Concordia is expected to be removed from Giglio in the spring of 2014.

“They’ll never be able to do it in time,” says one British maritime engineer who was not authorized to talk to the media but who worked for months on the raising of the liner.

Another candidate is Palermo in Sicily, which has a bigger port but is much further away from Giglio.

With time ticking away and no decision yet made, Italy runs the risk of losing out on the contract altogether – the latest suggestion is that the Concordia could be taken all the way to Smyrna in Turkey or even to India to be dismantled."

"ROME: The shipwrecked Costa Concordia cruise liner could be re-floated by June 2014, the engineer overseeing the long-delayed salvage operation off the Italian island of Giglio said on Saturday.

He said giant tanks that will help float the ship will be fixed to its side by April, mirroring the ones already welded to the other side before the 290-metre (951-foot) ship was dragged upright in September."

Title: Former Costa head Foschi retires from Carnival with 1.7 million dollar goodbye
Post by: Host Mike on January 07, 2014, 05:49:51 PM

"Carnival said Tuesday that Foschi, 67, is retiring after 16 years with the company. Foschi retired as Costa Cruises CEO six months after the Concordia disaster. Parent company Carnival later named him head of its business in Asia.

Carnival said in a regulatory filing Tuesday that Foschi stopped working for the company in November and retired from its board Monday. He is getting a payment 1.25 million euros ($1.7 million) as part of a separation agreement."

http://www.startribune.com/lifestyle/travel/239116351.html

Title: Concordia cruise ship to be removed from Giglio in June
Post by: Host Mike on January 11, 2014, 06:00:42 PM

"ROME — The Costa Concordia cruise ship wreck will be removed in June from its watery graveyard off Tuscany and taken to a port to be dismantled, the final phase of an unprecedented 600 million-euro ($817 million) salvage effort.

At a news conference Friday, Italy's civil protection chief and Costa Crociere officials gave the timetable and the rundown of what was needed for the ship to be refloated. They spoke just days before the second anniversary of the ship's Jan. 13, 2012, grounding that killed 32 people.

A handful of Italian ports — including Piombino, Genoa, Palermo and Civitavecchia — are bidding to take in the wreck and dismantle it for scrap. Ports in France, Turkey, Britain and even China are also bidding for the job."

http://www.startribune.com/world/239591331.html

Title: What contributed to the shipwreck?
Post by: Host Mike on January 24, 2014, 12:24:28 AM

"Experts are trying to determine if any factors beyond human error contributed to the shipwreck, and next month they will examine the emergency generators.

A judge granted a request for the onboard investigation sought by Capt. Francesco Schettino's defense and a consumer group representing victims.

Schettino is the only person on trial, but his defense and others contend that Costa Crociere SpA, the ship's owner, bears some responsibility."

"ROME — A lawyer for the owner of the cruise ship Costa Concordia has told an Italian court that the captain made no mention of those who perished in the shipwreck but instead boasted the day after that he had saved lives with his skill."

"The shipwreck of the Costa Concordia claimed another life on Saturday — more than two years after the cruise liner capsized off the coast of Giglio Island, killing 32 people.

The victim, a 40 year old Spanish diver, belonged to the salvage team who is presently working at the project aimed to re-float the cruise liner and tow it away in June.

“The dynamics of the accident is under investigation,” the TITAN Salvage-Micoperi Team said in a statement.

According to local media reports, the diver, Israel Franco Moreno, was trapped under the wreck while working in the delicate operation preceding the installation of 19 buoyancy tanks to the side of the ship.

It appears that Moreno cut his trapped leg in a sheet of metal, bleeding to death.

“We are terribly sorry. Another life adds to the Concordia tragedy,” Giglio mayor Sergio Ortelli said.

Title: Oh, what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive
Post by: Host Mike on April 15, 2014, 07:23:04 PM

"A witness giving evidence at Mr Schettino's trial claims that the ship's captain tried to blame the collision on a blackout.

Speaking in court on Monday, Roberto Ferrarini, who was the cruise company's marine operations director at the time of the accident, said: "Schettino proposed I tell authorities that a blackout caused the collision.

"I disagreed strongly and became angry. This was false and different to what he had told me earlier, namely that he had hit rocks and that the ship had flooded."

Title: It's not over until it's over
Post by: Host Mike on May 30, 2014, 07:40:43 PM

"Italy's Il Sole 24 Ore newspaper reported that the ship would be scrapped in Genoa, though Lupi said the final decision was still to be taken on which of several possible Italian ports would get the bid.

According to Il Sole 24 Ore, the ship's owners have chosen a consortium consisting of oil service company Saipem and Genoa-based companies Mariotti and San Giorgio.

It added that Costa Cruises, Europe's biggest cruise operator, had decided to begin the delicate operation to re-float the vessel on July 20.

The stricken ship would then be towed 280 kilometres (170 miles) to Genoa."

"Officials are hoping to start towing the infamous cruise ship on July 20, 2014 to Genoa where the ship will be dismantled and recycled. Workers are currently on the 4th stage of the removal process.

The cleanup and removal of the ship is expected to cost Carnival Corporation over $1 billion US dollars. The parbuckling alone cost $600 million according to chief financial officer of Carnival, Beniamino Maltese."

Title: Cruise ship that wrecked in 2012 is set to be towed
Post by: Host Mike on July 04, 2014, 09:20:08 PM

"ROME — The wreck of the Costa Concordia cruise liner is set to be refloated within 10 days, to be towed away from the Italian island where it ran aground and capsized in 2012, the group organizing the removal said yesterday."

"Italy’s Costa Concordia cruise ship on Monday began floating on its own for the first time since it crashed in January 2012, as an unprecedented salvage operation got underway to raise it.

The ship measuring 290 metres (951 feet) — the length of three football fields and twice as big as the Titanic — is slowly being refloated on the island of Giglio to be towed away for scrapping in Genoa.

“The ship is floating,” Franco Porcellacchia, the chief engineer in charge of the operation, told reporters.

“It is now about one metre off the underwater platform it was lying on,” he said, adding that it would be raised another metre before being shifted towards the open sea."

Title: Another day, and the worst is over,
Post by: Host Mike on July 18, 2014, 06:00:14 AM

"GIGLIO, Italy (AP) — The shipwrecked Costa Concordia was successfully refloated Monday in preparation to be towed away for scrapping, 30 months after it struck a reef and capsized, killing 32 people.

Authorities expressed satisfaction that the operation to float the Concordia from an underwater platform had proceeded without a hitch. Technicians later shifted the massive cruise ship some 30 meters (yards) before ending the day's operations.

"Another day, and the worst is over," said the head of the salvage operation, Nick Sloane."

"The entire operation to remove the Concordia from the reef and float it to Genova, where it will be scrapped, will cost a total of 1.5 billion euros ($2 billion), Costa Crociere SpA CEO Michael Tamm told reporters."

I wonder if they've opened the room safes & returned the people's valuables yet?

Title: The body of Indian waiter Russel Rebello is still missing
Post by: Host Mike on July 25, 2014, 02:22:29 AM

"The body of Indian waiter Russel Rebello is still missing and there will be a search for his remains when the ship is dismantled."

http://nwww.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20140723000863

Title: Just twenty meters to the right
Post by: Host Mike on July 26, 2014, 06:28:32 AM

"Spaniard Pablo Lázaro, who, with his wife and their children had gone up to the bridge of the ship, speculates it was lucky the Costa Concordia stayed on a sea shelf, with real depth so close: “If this ship — instead of stopping there — had ended up just twenty metres to the right, we’d be talking about 4,000 dead, because nobody would have survived.”

Title: Schettino is back to sailing again
Post by: Host Mike on July 26, 2014, 05:49:46 PM

"Captain Francesco Schettino — whose hapless leadership sank a Concordia cruise liner in 2012 and left 32 people dead — piloted a power boat Friday on vacation at an exclusive resort on the island of Ischia in his native Italy."

"GENOA, Italy (AP) — The shipwrecked Costa Concordia cruise liner has completed its final journey, reaching Genoa's port, where it will be scrapped."

"Coast guard Capt. Gianluca Agostino told Sky TG24 TV the 180-nautical-mile voyage from Giglio to Genoa went so smoothly that one night, crews in a control room attached to the Concordia lit up the lights along the uncrushed side as if it were making one last Mediterranean cruise.

"The Sapienza University of Rome has found itself at the centre of controversy after it emerged Francesco Schettino, the captain of the doomed Costa Concordia, was invited to speak at an event organised by a university professor on 'managing panic'.

Italian newspaper La Nazione reports that Schettino, currently on trial for charges of manslaughter and abandoning ship, described himself an “expert” on panic management in times of crisis as he spoke at the end of a limited access session held off the campus and organised by professor Vincenzo Mastronardi who teaches at the University’s Faculty of Medicine.

Schettino, who allegedly refused repeated orders to get back on the Concordia while as many as 300 passengers remained trapped on board, spoke after a 3D reconstruction of the sinking of the ship was shown.

He allegedly told the newspaper: “I was invited as an expert - I know how you behave in these situations. Besides, I have travelled in all the seas of the world, I know how you are supposed to react with ethnically diverse crews."

"MILAN -- The body of an Indian waiter who was the last missing victim of the shipwrecked Costa Concordia cruise liner has been found by crews dismantling the vessel, authorities said Monday.

The body was discovered by workers clearing debris from the ship in a passenger's cabin on the eighth deck, said Carabinieri commander Capt. Massimo Pittaluga. He said the victim was wearing a shirt that contained an identification card for missing crew member Russel Rebello."

Title: Captain still formally dressed in the early departing lifeboat
Post by: Host Mike on December 11, 2014, 08:06:20 PM

"Rome (CNN) -- A damning new video shown Wednesday at the trial of Francesco Schettino, captain of the wrecked Costa Concordia cruise liner, appears to show him boarding a lifeboat with passengers still clearly on board the doomed ship.

It was presented to the court as Schettino took the stand for a second day.

Schettino's lawyer, Domenico Pepe, asked the court not to admit the fuzzy videotape that appeared to show the captain getting onto a lifeboat from the ship's bow wearing the same jacket and tie he had on at dinner before the ship crashed.

Title: Killing three birds (or was it 32) with one stone
Post by: Host Mike on December 11, 2014, 08:13:35 PM

"Associated Press GROSSETO, Italy (AP) - Francesco Schettino, accused by survivors, politicians and the media of dereliction of duty after the 2012 shipwreck of the Costa Concordia cruise liner under his command killed 32, testified in his own defense for the first time Tuesday, defiant and gesticulating under questioning from Italian prosecutors.

The testimony had a theatrical flair, with Schettino hunched over a table on a stage, at times studying a photo of the ship's radar, while prosecutors in the front row of the auditorium played bit-by-bit audio segments from the ship's bridge the night of Jan. 13, 2012, when the cruise liner hit rocks off the Tuscan island of Giglio, tearing a huge gash in the hull."

"During his testimony, Schettino said he allowed the approach to Giglio "to kill three birds with one stone" - pay homage to a retired commander living there, who it turned out was on the mainland; do a favor for the maître d', who was from Giglio; and for marketing reasons.

Prosecutors, however, contested Schettino's notion that sailing close to the island was good for the cruise company, noting that passengers had not been advised and that had they looked out that night they would have only seen the island as a shadow in the dark.

Schettino denied a more salacious motive: taking the route near Giglio to impress a Moldovan dancer he had brought to the bridge. The woman has testified the two were lovers.

Schettino's defense says no one died in the collision itself, but the failure of a backup generator and supposedly watertight compartments that were flooded created problems during the evacuation."

Title: Oh by the way, can you tell me how deep is the water near the island?
Post by: Host Mike on December 11, 2014, 08:26:11 PM

"Schettino’s testimony marks the end of the prosecution’s case and the beginning of his somewhat challenging defense. Five of his colleagues who work for Costa Cruiseline, including several officers under his command at the time of the accident, successfully reached plea bargains last year. They admitted culpability and pleaded guilty to manslaughter in exchange for minimal fines and light sentences that have been suspended. All of their testimony has been accepted by the court, and most of it casts blame squarely on their captain."

"Schettino explained that he had gone by Giglio to give a maritime salute to a former Costa captain, Mario Palombo, who, he thought, was on the island at the time. He told the court he called the retired captain to see exactly where he lived so he knew when to sound the cruise ship horn. Palombo, who was on the mainland at the time, told him to move on. Then Schettino can be heard asking the retired captain how deep the water on the island’s edge was. When the prosecutor asked him why he asked the captain about the water’s depth, he said, “When he wasn’t home, I asked him instead about how deep the water was near the island to be courteous.”

"As assistant prosecutor Alessandro Leopizzi questioned Schettino, the captain described a scene of utter chaos on the bridge both before and after the accident.

At one point he explained how it was common to invite passengers and guests on the bridge, and said they often tipped him. "I said there couldn't be more than 12 people at a time," he said. "And they would bring 20, 30, 70 euro a tour."

He acknowledged frequently conducting flyby activities -- deviating from the planned route to go closer to certain places -- with his cruise ship. "It was favorable from a commercial aspect," he said.

When the prosecutor asked if he had ever done a flyby past Giglio before, he said he couldn't remember but might have passed close by."

"Pushed as to why he used his binoculars instead of relying on the radar, Schettino said, "It was my habit to take my binoculars and look first. Not that I didn't trust the radar, but it was how I did it."

He was confident that the ship had enough room for the maneuver, he said.

In an audiotape played over the radar from the bridge extracted from the ship's data recorder, Schettino told his helmsman to turn, "otherwise we go on the rocks."

Asked why he made that comment, he said he was being ironic. "A few minutes later, I was told the danger we were in."

"Schettino has repeatedly presented a defiant face over the shipwreck.

He has pointed the finger at the Costa cruise company for not providing maps with the rocks he hit appropriately marked.

Schettino has also blamed the ship, saying generators did not work so the elevators did not function, which hindered some people's escape."

"One of the things that went wrong during the approach to Giglio is that someone on the deck should have taken over look-out responsibilities from Indonesian crew member Jacob Rusli Bin, who was moved to the helmsman position, Schettino said.

His deputy Ciro Ambrosio, who was in command of the Concordia at the start of the manoeuvre, took that decision. Schettino said he did not notice the problem because, even if he was also there, he was busy with a phone conversation.

Schettino entered the Concordia's command room 11 minutes before the accident, but formally assumed control of the cruise liner five minutes later, leaving Ambrosio in charge for a while even as his superior was standing alongside him.

Black box recordings have previously revealed that once Schettino took over, Rusli Bin had trouble understanding his steering orders. It is a matter of controversy whether the collision could have been avoided had the helmsman acted more promptly."

"The ground-up loss to the reinsurance treaty of the International Group of protection and indemnity (P&I) clubs from the Costa Concordia sinking has increased by another $57mn to just under $1.5bn, The Insurance Insider can reveal."

"The captain on trial for manslaughter for the deaths of 32 people in the 2012 Costa Concordia shipwreck off Italy has testified that he didn't deem it necessary to order an early evacuation of the luxury liner."

Title: Ship was sinking and drifting but no emergency signal was ordered
Post by: Host Mike on December 11, 2014, 09:19:45 PM

"In court, Schettino confirmed on Wednesday that he had left the bridge barely half an hour after ordering the launch of lifeboats, saying he needed to get a radio from his cabin.

The cabin was on the right hand side of the boat, which was tilted towards the sea and was soon to lurch further on to its starboard side, leaving him with no option but to disembark, he said."

"He rejected suggestions he had been negligent in failing to issue a clear "abandon ship" order, for fear of inciting panic. "I sweetened the pill," he told the court in Grosseto, Tuscany."

"The Concordia hit the rocks at 9.45pm and the order to abandon ship was not issued until 10.54pm by which time the boat had drifted back towards the island, where it eventually came to rest on the sea bed, half-submerged in about 20 metres of water."

"A famous ballerina he was trying to steal a kiss from just before the collision is even ratting him out. According to her version of the story, she was sitting on his lap steering the vessel with a martini in her hand in pitch darkness when they felt the ship heave suddenly. The captain merely shrugged and said they had most likely run over something in the sea and that the ship probably had a flat tire. The ballerina, who is from Moldova and could barely understand Italian, let alone the captain’s awful dialect, began to think the captain was just being nice to her since the ship began to list violently to one side. She said that just then the captain called someone on the phone and ordered another strange-sounding drink called a “helicopter.” When the assumed bartender on the other end of the line said he didn’t know how to make one, he instead ordered another drink called a “lifeboat.” I don’t think she is going to be of much help to him, but that’s just my opinion."

"A prosecutor in the trial for the shipwreck of the Costa Concordia has contended that 32 people died not because the luxury cruise liner crashed into a reef, but due to “chaos, delays, errors” under the captain’s watch.

Prosecutor Alessandro Leopizzi was making final arguments today in the trial in Grosseto, Tuscany, of Francesco Schettino, who captained the Italian liner which capsized near tiny Giglio island in 2012.

Schettino is charged with manslaughter, causing the shipwreck, and abandoning ship while many passengers and crew were still aboard.

Some jumped or fell into the sea as the ship rolled over. Post-mortem examinations found victims drowned aboard or in the sea.

"Prosecutors accused Schettino of failing to sound the emergency alarm after the Costa Concordia struck rocks off the Italian island of Giglio on January 13, 2012. The captain attempted to execute a dangerous shore-line manoeuvre with the Concordia, and abandoned the ship shortly after it wrecked — leaving 32 of the 4,229 passengers to die. He also failed to call for help. Schettino claims that he successfully saved lives after the Costa Concordia capsized, and blames his crew for failing to notify the captain of the oncoming rocks."

"GROSSETO, Italy – Whatever verdict is delivered in the trial of the Italian sea captain for the shipwreck of the Costa Concordia cruise liner and for the deaths of 32 people, survivors and victims' families already are wondering if justice will be done.

The trial, expected to bring a verdict this week, has a sole defendant. Francesco Schettino is accused of causing the shipwreck on the night of Jan. 13, 2012, when he steered too close to a tiny Tuscan island, smashing into a granite reef that sliced open the hull, sending seawater rushing in.

Schettino is also charged with multiple manslaughter and injury, and of abandoning the luxury liner when many of the 4,200 passengers and crew were still aboard and desperately trying to save themselves — some by leaping into the sea — as the Concordia was capsizing.

Survivors, shivering as they staggered ashore on Giglio Island, were startled to see the captain, already safe on land, "without even getting his feet wet," noted Prosecutor Alessandro Leopizzi in closing arguments."

Title: Schettino found guilty of manslaughter and other charges
Post by: Host Mike on February 11, 2015, 07:10:09 PM

"Grosseto, Italy (CNN)The captain of the Costa Concordia is guilty of manslaughter and other charges related to the ship's fatal wreck in January 2012 off the Italian coast, a judge announced Wednesday night, capping a tumultuous 19-month trial and providing a little more closure for dozens of grieving families.

Lengthy trial or not, the three-judge panel needed only about five hours to decide the fate of Francesco Schettino. Their choices: Agree with prosecutors who cast the captain as an "idiot" who abandoned ship like a coward, or with defense lawyers who characterized him as a "scapegoat" who ended up in a lifeboat only because he lost his balance and fell into it.

The judges apparently sided with prosecutors, and sentenced Schettino to spend 16 years in prison and to pay court costs."

http://www.cnn.com/2015/02/11/world/costa-concordia-trial/

(http://www.skyguardgroup.com/news/imgs/Corporate%20Manslaughter.png)

Title: Schettino will be free on bond during appeal "which can take years."
Post by: Host Mike on February 11, 2015, 07:17:40 PM

A court in the town of Grosseto found him guilty of multiple manslaughter, causing a shipwreck and abandoning his passengers in one of the highest-profile shipping disasters in recent years.

However the judges rejected a request that Schettino begin his sentence immediately. They ruled instead that [Schettino] would not go to prison until the appeals process is completed, which can take years. "

"The prosecution rejected the argument of Capt Schettino's lawyers that he had unfairly been made a scapegoat and that the other officers who were on the bridge on the night of the collision should have been tried alongside him.

Mr Pizza continued:

Quote It takes nerve to continue to insist that the fault lies with others.

We ask you, the judges, that he should receive the right punishment, a punishment that will re-establish the truth of what happened to the Concordia."

Title: Schettino compared to an improvisational actor by the court
Post by: Host Mike on July 23, 2015, 12:28:21 PM

"The court said Schettino knew people were still aboard the Costa Concordia when he boarded a life boat and abandoned the ship, adding that he did this "to save himself with the precise intention of not getting back on the ship". In the report, judges said the situation when Schettino abandoned the Concordia was such as "to make it impossible or difficult" for the passengers still aboard to "find safety". "The 32 deaths of the people on board the Concordia wouldn't have happened if (Schettino) had managed the emergency with expertise and diligence," the report said, and if he had adhered to "dutiful" regulations for a situation of that kind. During the emergency, Schettino received a call from Italian Coast Guard Commander Gregorio De Falco, who in the aftermath of the disaster was hailed as a "hero" for ordering Schettino to return to the sinking Concordia. In the report, the Grosseto court said that during the conversation, Schettino was "improvising, recounting a movie that was playing only in his imagination," and the judges compared Schettino to an improvisational actor. "Those lies are offensive towards the hundreds of people who were trapped," said the report, adding that they were even more so towards "those who didn't make it".

"The doomed Costa Concordia was carrying a huge shipment of Mafia-owned cocaine when it set off on its final voyage, investigators have said.

’Ndrangheta, the feared Calabrian crime syndicate, had its drugs hidden aboard the huge cruise ship that partially capsized in January 2012 with the loss of 32 lives, phone and tape recordings of gang members have revealed.

“The same ship that made us a laughing stock around the world, took the piss out of us, too,” ’Ndrangheta boss Michele Rossi is heard saying to an associate, Massimo Tiralongo, according to police officers investigating the organisation’s vast cocaine-trafficking operation.

In addition to vessels operated by Costa Cruises, ’Ndrangheta also placed its drugs on ships owned by MSC and Norwegian Cruise Lines, which travel between Europe, North America and the Caribbean, according to details of the criminal investigation revealed in La Repubblica."

"Florence’s appeals court has upheld the 16-year jail term for Francesco Schettino, the captain of the Costa Concordia cruise ship, which sank off Italy in 2012 leaving 32 people dead.

Schettino was not in court when the verdict was read out by presiding judge Grazia D’Onofrio. He will not be jailed immediately pending a possible further appeal and it is unlikely he will ever the complete sentence because of Italy’s crammed jails and generous parole system."

The black box from the vessel recorded him saying: "Let's go and do a salute [to Giglio]" in his native Neapolitan dialect.

As the ship approached the shore, he told the helmsman to swing the rudder hard to starboard - "otherwise we go on the rocks".

After the huge ship hit the rocks, Schettino initially gave the order "hard to port", moments later changing his mind and calling out: "Hard to starboard. Close the watertight doors in the engine room."

The chief officer of the engine room told him the level of the water was rising fast. Schettino then asked: "So are we really going down? I don't understand."

"ROME -- The Italian captain of the Costa Concordia cruise liner that crashed into a reef in 2012 and capsized, killing 32 people, was headed to a Rome prison after losing his final appeals bid Friday.

Title: What do you want to do Schettino? Go home?
Post by: Host Mike on January 13, 2018, 10:59:39 AM

"Livorno port official Gregorio De Falco shot to fame for his orders to Francesco Schettino after the captain abandoned the Costa Concordia, which sank off Italy in 2012 in a disaster that killed 32 people."

"Schettino, dubbed "Captain Coward" by the media for abandoning ship, spent most of the evacuation on a rock as terrified passengers threw themselves off the tilting liner at night after it hit an outcrop off the island of Giglio.

A telephone call transcript later emerged of De Falco demanding the captain return to ship.

When Schettino resists, De Falco warns: "You may have managed to save yourself but there, it will really go badly... I will create a lot of trouble for you. Get on board, for fuck's sake!"

"But do you realise that it is dark and we can't see anything?" Schettino asks, leaving an incredulous De Falco to wonder: "What do you want to do, Schettino? Go home? It is dark so you want to go home?"

The conversation was seen in Italy as an allegory of the country's "two souls"; on one side the "hair-creamed godfather used to breaking the rules", on the other the military hero with rigorous ethics."